


Conversations: Seasons 1-2

by wearerofthehat



Series: Episode Related Conversations Between Raymond Reddington and Dembe Zuma [1]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Dom/sub Undertones, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Father-Daughter Relationship, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, No Incest, Slow Burn, Some BDSM, Suicidal Thoughts, cheek kissing, hand holding, pre slash, suicidal behaviour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-03-24 06:48:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 42
Words: 33,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13805730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearerofthehat/pseuds/wearerofthehat
Summary: I wrote and uploaded this while Season 5 was on air and intended it to be (mostly) canon compliant. Then S5E22 turned it into an AU.This story spans Red's conflict with Berlin and the escalation of Red's cold war with the Cabal into an all out conflict. Other story arcs include Liz's relationship with Tom and a haf-deliberate AU involving Naomi and Jennifer.Meanwhile Red displays his undying devotion towards Liz and his Liz-induced mood swings. I wrote this thinking Red was Liz's father so there are paternal themes. A lot of that is appropriate even now since it seems clear to me that after stealing the identity of Liz's father Red took on that role for himself in a lot of ways. This fic also acknowledges that some of his behaviour towards her isn't exactly paternal (see chapter 30).The central relationship is intended to be Red/Dembe, and it shows their deep emotional bond and the UST. Dembe calls Red out on his recklessness and keeps him emotionally balanced. There are also glimpses of their backstory.In light of S5E22 I have labeled the relevant chapters with daddygate and other anachronisms.





	1. Pilot

After Liz left, a guard came to shut the cell door behind her and Red demanded to borrow his phone. 

‘Why, so you can escape?’

‘When are you people going to realise I’m right where I want to be? Ask Assistant Director Harold Cooper for permission if you must, just as long as you give me the damn phone.’

It took longer than he liked but the guard handed over his phone eventually. Once he had it Red shut his cell door himself. It gave him the illusion of privacy but he wasn't fool enough to believe the call wouldn't be recorded. He dialled the number for Dembe's burner. 

‘She's absolutely magnificent.’

‘I hear she almost killed you.’ 

‘So?’ Red replied, and Dembe could tell just from his voice that he was grinning. ‘In that moment she was so angry, so fierce and unafraid. There’s a fire has inside she got from…’

From Katarina was what he wanted to say, but he couldn’t use that name there and then. 

Dembe knew who he was talking about in any case.

‘We should be thankful that Zamini didn’t kill Tom after all, or else she might have actually killed you.’

‘You’re really hung up about that aren’t you? Never fear. I’ll arrange matters so you can protect me from Lizzie’s murderous tendencies.’

He’ll require a security detail as part of his immunity agreement. Get the FBI to choose two out of five associates so they think they have some power in the decision. Dembe and Luli were on the list while the other three had outrageously long criminal records. The FBI were so predictable Dembe was guaranteed to become one of his official bodyguards. 

There was a long, heavy silence and Dembe thought he could pin-point the moment his friend’s playfulness changed into something miserable and brooding.

‘What is wrong?’

Red’s thoughts had wandered to the one family that had been separated on one of his people smuggling operations. The Yousefs. As soon as he landed Mr Yousef demanded to be told where his wife and children were. Red was halfway across the world but he dropped everything and roped Glen into finding them. They were reunited several weeks later. It was certainly a moving sight but what really hit him was the joy and relief that the father displayed when he saw his children again and vice versa. He’d wanted something like that for himself with every fibre of his being. 

He’d known it was impossible. But subconsciously, he must have still hoped for it. Liz had done a good job of hiding it but when she walked up to that box he’d seen that she was terrified. He was devastated. Logically, it was to be expected. She knew nothing of him except what she learned at Quantico but his own emotional response hadn’t had anything to do with logic. In his efforts to hide it, smother it, he overcompensated. 

He couldn’t comfort her, be someone worthy of her love so instead he gave her someone she should fear. The psychopath who gets off on messing with the sanity and moral clarity of the innocent. The joy he felt in interacting with her after so long was so painful he twisted it into an almost sadistic glee at her expense, complete with a smirk and a sinister laugh. 

Everything about me is a lie indeed. He wanted her to trust him. More than anything, he wanted her trust but fat chance of that happening now.

All he could think was that was her first impression of him. Given time he might be able to scavenge something approaching an emotional bond but every time he did something that reminded her of what he was she would return to that first impression.

But he could tell Dembe none of this over the phone. For the first time, he wanted out. He wanted to be talking to his friend face to face and not being able to hurt like the ache in a phantom limb.

‘I miss you.’

Dembe knew that wasn’t all and that Red would tell him about it when he could.

‘I’ll see you soon, Raymond.’

‘Yes.’

Red could imagine it even now. Dembe would drive up and he’d call out a greeting to him before he even got out of the car. Then once he was standing he’d pull him into a long hug and kiss him on both cheeks and he would feel as if an essential part of himself had returned.

Even the thought of that was comforting.


	2. The Freelancer (No. 145)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mention of Red as Katarina's target

‘I will not thank you for having Floriana Campo killed.’

Red was unsurprised at this. He knew how Dembe felt about any revenge taken on his behalf though he had never really understood it.

‘She transported you as a slave. Forcibly drugged you. Bought and sold you. How can you be so sanguine about that?’

‘I am not the same person I was then.’

Red looked at him, at stillness and calm where there had been anger and aggression when he first met him. 

‘No, you aren’t. I envy that in you. The ability to move forward, change yourself for the better.

I didn’t kill her for you. Not entirely.’

At the last Shell Island retreat Floriana publically declared that he’d turned down an offer to be a partner in her business. Tried to make him out to be a sheep in wolf’s clothing. As if a moral revulsion towards slavery was something to be ashamed of. A weakness.

‘She was offensive to me on so many levels. For what she did to you personally, but also just the simple fact that she profited off the suffering of children. I hated her smug superiority towards me, and her duplicity. The way she presented herself as a saint. Claimed to be saving the very children she trafficked in the first place. 

Lizzy did her senior thesis on her. She idolised her.’ 

He’d been jealous of her for that. Heaven knew there was nothing admirable about what they taught of him in schools and universities but for Liz to put her on a pedestal when she was, on the whole, certainly no better than him had been a bitter pill to swallow. 

‘That business with the fake antidote was for Elizabeth’s benefit.’

‘Yes. Do you think that was a bit much? I don’t know, I rather enjoyed it.’

Dembe didn’t criticise him for that, and Red knew they were alright. They sat in silence for a moment. It was companionable, peaceful. Liz had said that Red was careful not to have any tight bonds because he knew they made him vulnerable. She was only half right. Dembe was incredibly dear to him, but Red had taken care that the true depth of his devotion to Dembe remained secret lest it be used against him. For his part, Dembe was endlessly grateful to Red. Not for Floriana’s death, but for how Red saved him in the first place. When he changed shirts in that locker room he had meant for Ressler to see the brand on his back. Red’s lifestyle forced him to hide the best parts of himself, but in this small thing Dembe had made sure that the Task Force would see Red as he did. 

But this silence couldn’t last. There was something Red had been meaning to talk about with Dembe, something he’d been putting off. 

‘She found Tom’s go box,’ said Red.

Dembe nodded to show that he was listening.

‘It’s about time events moved towards getting him out of her life. Only… I’ve told her that she can’t confront him and can’t turn him in. In time I’ll tell her that her only choice is to pretend that she knows nothing in order to spy on him in turn.’

‘You’re using her to get to Tom’s employer.’

Red grimaced at that. Using her, as if she was an object to be manipulated rather than someone to be cherished and protected.

‘It’s what I did when I found out about Katerina.’ 

Even as he said it Red knew it was a feeble defence.

‘That is different.’ 

Red could only agree.

‘You’re right. I was already in the business of collecting intelligence, of playing dumb so I could wait and watch and learn. She doesn’t have the temperament. She’s honest and impetuous, desperate to believe in the man she married. But it needs to happen like this. Not just to find out his employer, but because she needs to find out the truth about Tom for herself and this is the only way.’

‘This will change her, Raymond.’

‘No.’

Everything in Red rebelled at the idea of Liz losing even the slightest bit of her innocence and honesty.

‘She’s stronger than that. She has to be.’

Dembe thought that Red was lying to himself but trying to point it out would serve no purpose.


	3. Wujing (No. 84)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daddygate

After Red finished his dinner he blew out the candles. Really, it was frivolous to have lit them in the first place, but there was something about the luscious nature of the room – the velvet blue drapes and the crystal chandelier – that demanded candles. Then he settled in to wait, in a comfortable chair with book in hand. Dembe arrived when he took over from Newton around 11:00, and joined him in the living area. Dembe spoke first. 

‘I asked if everything was ok after you separated from Wujing and you said it was fine. It was not. What happened down there?’

Red told him of Jin Sun. Of how Wujing had suspected him as the source of the leak, that he’d had to stop Liz from trying to intervene. He told Dembe of how Jun Sun saw the remote mirroring program Liz used to access the FBI servers and that he killed him before he could talk.

‘She blames me for his death. Thinks there was some other way. There wasn’t. But the way she looked at me. It's strange. I don’t see how anyone can kill someone in cold blood and go on as if nothing has happened, but this ... shame I feel is entirely a different sort of thing.’

It was made all the harder because they had made such a good team, communicating with each other without anyone else realising. He’d had so much fun, felt so close to her, and then to lose that so quickly was difficult to bear. 

‘I should have been there. I would have killed him myself.’

‘No. We talked about this. It was pushing it just to get her in as an unknown guest. They wouldn’t have let you in too. It was all you could do to wait in the car and follow us after we got out. Besides, it was probably for the best. At least now she has some idea of what I’m capable of.’

Dembe looked at Red, at the way he slumped in his chair.

‘Something else bothers you as well.’

‘Yes. The question she asked me, as her end of the deal. She asked why I picked her, as I knew she would. I told her it was because of her father. She asked if I knew him and I refused to answer.’

He’d wondered if she would ask him if he was her father, and he’d dreaded it but insanely, he’d hoped for it as well. He didn’t have any idea how he’d reply. 

‘You should tell her.’

It wasn’t the first time Dembe told Red this. That was when he accompanied Red to Liz’s graduation. Red had been unable to take his eyes off her, and helplessness and longing emanated off him in waves. Red knew that telling her was impossible with the dangers surrounding his life and hers. But Dembe had somehow grown up with the idea that it was worth the danger of being in Red’s world if it meant having him as a father figure.

Red thought that it was a moot point in any case because if she suspected they had a familial connection she clearly didn’t want it confirmed.

‘Yeah, well, even if I wanted to tell her I don’t think it would have gone down so well this afternoon.’


	4. The Stewmaker (No. 161)

Red stood in front of the window, a scotch glass in hand. He’d been quiet, withdrawn. Dembe didn’t ask what was wrong because he knew already. He also knew that his friend would break the silence in his own time. Meanwhile, he poured a glass of scotch for himself and came to stand by his shoulder. Red didn’t look at him, but his posture shifted till he was leaning towards him slightly.

‘Once, in my early days at the naval academy I was sailing alone on the pacific. Everything was calm and still, until it wasn’t. The sky went grey then black. The rain absolutely pelted down, the wind buffeted so hard against me against the boat I couldn’t stand upright. The waves tossed us around like a child’s plaything. I was utterly powerless. I thought I would die in that storm and all I could do was hold on and hope that I would see the light of day.  


Since then I thought I knew what it meant to be really, truly terrified. 

I had no idea. 

After the Stewmaker took her, that was pure, unadulterated terror. Knowing that at any moment he might kill her, that she might be dead already. It pervaded my consciousness until it was in everything that I saw, every breath that I took. Good heavens, it’s a wonder that I could think straight at all. When it looked like Hector would withhold his information from me I was this close to beating him up, his body guards be damned.’

He broke off with his typical mocking laugh, only this time it was aimed at himself.

‘He knew it too. I was so wound up I couldn’t even hide it from the man I was bargaining with. 

I was able to put him off, tell him it was the Stewmaker I wanted, not the woman he was holding. He seemed satisfied with that, and really, it doesn't matter what he thought because he never did walk off my jet. But I worry. Some enemy of mine only needs to see my reaction when they put her in danger to know that they can make me do anything they want if only they promise not to touch her. 

If I knew better I would distance myself from her further still. But I need to be in her life, she needs me in her life whether she knows it or not and while I spend so much time with her it is all I can do to maintain the distance I still have.’

Dembe put a hand on his shoulder, and Red looked around at him. The remnants of his fear still clung to the corners of his eyes.

‘It was alright, Raymond. She will be alright.’

He opened his mouth as if to disagree, call him out on the blatant platitude, say that he couldn’t know for sure what was in store for her but he closed it again. Swallowed. And then nodded as if he were convincing himself.

They stayed in front of that window for a while longer, until they finished their drinks. Then Red turned, and tilted his chin up a little to kiss Dembe on the cheek. 

He murmured a thankyou in his ear and then went off to bed.


	5. The Courier (No. 85)

‘Elizabeth’s starting to trust me, Dembe. She’s been investigating the gun she found in Tom’s go box. It’s linked to a murder in Boston and through Seth Nelson I was able to give her the classified document related to that incident. Afterwards, she came to me. Confided in me. She said she didn’t know why she was here and she sat on the very end of the couch.

But she came because she trusted me and I made her feel safe.'

Dembe didn’t show even a hint of happiness for him.

‘You seem upset.’

‘What you said while I was trying to resuscitate Seth Nelson was insensitive.’

‘What did I… Ah, about how I died in Marrakech. Well. It seemed like an appropriate thing to say at the time.’

‘There was nothing appropriate about it at all. That boy may have actually died and you only spoke because no one was paying attention to you.’

Red frowned, taken aback.

‘You can’t seriously believe that I didn’t care whether or not that kid lived.’

Because he _had_ cared. Cooper had wanted to hold Laurence Dechambou indefinitely while Red knew that would get them nowhere. Dechambou had wanted to sell the information to Seth’s location for $20 million. He’d been the one to remind them both that there was a boy’s life at stake. Dembe hadn’t been there either of those times but surely he knew him better than that.

‘This isn’t really about that at all, is it? There’s something else.’

‘That was the first I heard about it.’

‘Ah.’

Ah. That’s all he’s got to say, Dembe thought. He wondered if Red even realised what his glib comment had done to him. The wave of retroactive fear and helplessness. Red could have died and he hadn’t been there. Hadn’t even known. He would have had to hear about it from someone else after the fact and that didn't even bear thinking about.

‘What happened and where was I?’

‘It was in 2003 while you were in the Sudanese region.

As for what happened, I’d carried out a number of high profile operations in Florence and Paris so I decided to steer clear of my usual European stomping grounds for a bit. Marrakesh seemed to be the next best thing. All those French tourists. I figured I’d be able to fit right in.

I managed to lay low for nearly a whole day before coming up against their wildlife traders. They brazenly sell monkeys as pets to tourists, right there in the town square. And not just any monkeys but the Barbary Macaque; a species that is native only to the Atlas Mountains. They yank them around from the chains around their necks!

So, on that first evening I found the most prolific trader and convinced him I’d buy all the Barbary Macaques he had in stock, but that for security and transport reasons I’d meet him outside the city a couple of hours later. After it was dark. It was a stretch, but I waved a lot of cash at him and made very sure that he saw me as just another eccentric tourist with more money than he knew what to do with.

That night I killed him and freed the Barbary Macaques.’

‘And then his friends came after you.’

‘What? Ah, no. Turns out all those French tourists attract gangs who target said tourists. I was ambushed, beat up, robbed and left for dead. Luckily it was only a few doors down from my hotel and I’d made fast friends with the hotel concierge. He performed CPR on me and made sure I got medical care.’

Dembe stared at him in mute stupefaction for a bit.

‘This is why I don’t like leaving you on your own.’

Red shrugged expansively.

‘Well, it turned out alright.’

Dembe only shook his head and then asked, ‘What did you see on the other side?’

Red frowned in mock puzzlement.

‘What? Oh, that was only something I said to attract attention, while a young man lay dying at my feet.’

It was said with a smile and a playful tone of voice but Dembe still got the message and agreed not to press him on it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so I should probably mention that I've been working on these for a while and I've actually written chapters up to S3E10. I do intend to get into a weekly posting schedule but I'd like to get a good bulk of season 1 out of the way first.


	6. Gina Zanetacos (No. 152)

Red called out to Dembe after Liz left, and he came back into the room.

‘How much of that did you hear?’

‘Almost everything she said.’

Red nodded. She’d shouted at him rather loudly.

‘I imagine you did.’

‘Are you alright?’

‘No. But I will be.’

Red laughed at himself.

‘Earlier this afternoon I would have said that everything was going to plan.

She found a photo of Tom in Gina’s apartment. When she told me, she was in tears. She let me hold her hand. She needed me and I was there for her. It was … exactly what I longed for all this time.’

He remembered telling her she could trust him. He’d made a promise to her, to himself, that he would never lie to her. It would make things all the more difficult but he would keep it. As well as he knew how.

Not that his word meant all that much to her anyway.

‘But, well. You heard her. Gina apparently denied ever knowing Tom, took the fall for Angel Station and claimed I was the one who contracted her. Tom claimed I set him up. Lured him to Boston under the pretence of a fake job interview and had Newton pose as the principal looking for staff.

I denied it but she wouldn't listen. She called me sick and twisted. Accused me of being obsessed with her.

That was all my newfound closeness with her amounted to. A couple days, a mere _taste_ of what it would be like if she trusted me, allowed me to be there for her before she turned around and treated me exactly like the psychopath out to screw with the sanity of the innocents who are forced into his proximity.

I’d never set out to corrupt her. All I have ever wanted is to build her up. But there’s nothing I can do or say that would convince her.’

Dembe rested a hand on his shoulder.


	7. Fredrick Barnes (No. 47)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dadddygate

‘Last night, when I talked to Elizabeth by the car. I gave her the opportunity to tell me to go away.’

Dembe nodded. He’d been inside the car, and hadn’t known what they were talking about. He’d been curious though, and from the way Red held himself when he got back in the car Dembe knew that he’d found a new measure of peace. That he seemed to have come to a new understanding with Liz. 

‘Would you really have left?’

‘I was betting on her telling me to stay. I reinforced the idea that I had information she wanted to ensure she would do exactly that. But if, in spite of that she told me to leave I would have. 

My deal with the FBI, the taskforce, the blacklist, none of it has any meaning at all if it doesn’t allow me to pursue some sort of personal connection to her. I can’t have everything I want but I need something, even if it is just the hope that she might come to care for me and trust me in the future.

If she told me to leave, I would have known that was impossible.’

‘What about Tom?’

‘I would’ve taken him. Tortured him, killed him. If she didn’t love him as she does I would have killed him years ago but I can’t let him remain in her life indefinitely. Without my deal with the FBI I would have no way of making her see what he is for herself.’

‘She would have come after you.’

‘I would’ve counted on it.’

Dembe didn’t ask why, which was probably wise. Red wondered what it said of him that if he couldn’t make Liz his friend he’d make an enemy of her instead. Anything to bind her to him. Probably nothing good.

Dembe’s thoughts had moved to the house in Takoma Park. He’d always known that it was an old house of Red’s and what he intended to do with it after he bought it.

Dembe also knew that his explanation to Luli – that it was about forgetting a violent tragedy – didn’t really cut it. He'd watched Red as he looked out that window and he'd known that while there was grief and loss in that moment, there was no anger. Something he would have expected if they were there to erase an act of violence and tragedy brought upon those he loved. In any case, Red responded to anger and violence by giving it back in spades. Revenge was his way of immortalising it. This was something different. 

‘Why did you destroy that house?’

Red thought about it for a moment, organising his thoughts and feelings into words.

‘When I said that I spent every day trying to forget what happened there, I wasn’t talking about how it all ended. The really painful memories are the happy ones. They are a relic of a man that no longer exists, of the man who died during that fire.’

Dembe didn’t question him on this, although it didn’t make sense. Was he a man whose driving purpose in life was to reclaim a connection with his estranged daughter? Or was he the walking husk of a man who told himself that his ordinary, happy memories of bringing up that same daughter belonged to someone else, someone dead? How could he possibly be both at once?

These were things Red needed to sort out for himself.

'Did you never consider bombing the house without buying it first? You could have chosen a time no one was there.'

Red was genuinely offended.

'What? And destroy some poor person's home? Their possessions and keepsakes? Never.'

Dembe grinned, and Red got the sense he was the butt of a joke that he didn't quite get.

'You, a career criminal, have such respect for other people's private property that you would never blow up their house without buying it first?

Red felt the absurd need to defend his status as a monstrous criminal.

'Well, it just wouldn't have been the same with other people's stuff cluttering up the place.'

'Yes, Raymond, I'm sure that's why you waited more than two decades to buy it.'

'Oh, be quiet.'

And Dembe obeyed, but that did nothing to detract from his fondly smug grin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that since the hight chart and Red's flashback are Liz-centric, Red and Carla might as well have brought up Jennifer elsewhere, and the family he mentioned to Luli was the one with Katarina and Liz. That they spent time there while Kirk was on business trips or something. 
> 
> I'll introduce Red's first family in a later chapter.


	8. General Ludd (No. 109)

‘I spoke to Tom Keen for the first time today.’

Red laughed.

‘Ah Dembe, you should have seen us. I approached him as if he was a stranger to me and he followed suit. It was like a competition to see who would drop their character first, as if this one interaction might have determined who the better spy was. In between the lines I threatened him. Made it clear I was watching, that I would hurt him if he tried to hurt her. That I’ll hurt him anyway for what he’s already done. He got the better of me in that Gina Zanetakos fiasco but I'll bring him down in the end.

Oh, but the real highlight of the day was when Lizzy and I questioned Abraham Maltz. She came right out and said she was FBI, that I was her informant and threatened to have the Miami field office storm his place if he didn’t give her what she needed. She was spectacular and he caved immediately. Then I made it all look like she was actually a prospective client, and it was a test to see just how important patient confidentiality was to him. A test he’d failed. She played along and oh, we had him so twisted into knots it was absolutely superb!’

Dembe didn’t doubt it but something about his employer was off. The pleasure he expressed was genuine but exaggerated. He was using it to cover for a something else, something far less positive. That Red was trying to cover it at all said that it was a response to something that he had done, something terrible.

‘What have you done, Raymond?’

Red shook his head and smiled, and Dembe knew immediately that whatever he was going to say next had nothing to do with what he wanted to know.

‘I requisitioned the blueprints for the new $100 bill off of Nathaniel Wolff. I have _no_ idea what I’ll do with them, but …’

‘I was there. Try again.’

Red assumed an air of mock sympathy and contrition.

‘Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re just so still and quiet you simply fade into the background…’

‘Raymond.’

The corner or Red’s mouth went slack, and his gaze skittered towards the floor.

‘I killed Sam Millhoan.’

‘Why?’

‘His cancer wasn’t gonna kill him fast enough. He was given six weeks to live and he told me, he _said_ that he wished he’d been given six hours. That he’d told the nurses to take away the machines and give them to someone who actually had vital signs. He wanted to die, and he was asking me to ensure that it happened.’

Dembe believed him but he could tell that wasn’t the end of it.

‘There’s something else.’ Said Dembe.

This time Red maintained eye contact and he spoke quickly, as if to pre-empt his own instinct to keep it a secret.

‘He was going to tell Elizabeth about me. About everything.’

‘You killed him to keep him silent.’

‘I killed him to put him out of his misery.’

‘Would you have killed him if he was healthy and still wanted to tell her?’

‘He would never have told Elizabeth if he wasn’t already on his deathbed.’

‘That was not an answer.’

Red went silent for a moment, opened his mouth a few times before he finally spoke.

‘I don’t know.’

His voice was soft, anguished and they both knew that he probably would have if it came down to it.

Dembe had envied Sam’s relationship with Red. He’d never met Sam but Red talked about him occasionally with fondness and nostalgia. It was clear that he reminded Red of a time when his life was ordinary and innocent, before the fire and the Cabal. Even before his work during the Cold War. When Red talked of Sam it was clear that he could almost convince himself that none of that had ever happened.

He had killed that last link to his childhood.

Dembe could tell that killing Sam had affected Red deeply. There was grief and self loathing etched in every line of his posture and expression. Red held a hand out in mute entreaty and Dembe knew that Red was pleading for some measure of forgiveness. Absolution. In these times Red counted on him to show him that there was still goodness in him, but he couldn’t. Dembe found he couldn’t even stay in the same room with him and he left without a word.


	9. Anslo Garrick (No. 16)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daddygate

Dembe was the first to get to the safe house and he pulled Red to him as soon as he went through the door. He’d been completely powerless to stop Garrick from taking Red and he’d feared that would be the last time he ever saw him. Next to the terror he'd felt for Red's safety, his lingering resentment over Sam’s death lost all relevance.

Red allowed himself to be hugged, took some comfort in it before grasping Dembe above his elbows. He shook him.

‘Never do that to me again.’

Dembe only looked at him, nonplussed.

‘You almost died right in front of me and it was only chance that saved you. I would've fought for you. _Should_ have fought for you. D'you think those last seconds of peace you gave me would’ve lasted a moment after you were killed?’

If he had died like that Red wouldn’t have forgiven himself for not doing everything in his power to save him. The memory of saying goodbye to him would have become a nightmare. And that prayer. It had always given him a measure of peace, ever since Dembe first shared it with him. But now it would always remind Red of how close he’d come to losing him.

‘I would not have let you hurt Agent Ressler in order to save me.’

‘Sometimes it’s not about what you let me do. I wouldn't have cared if you were angry at me. You would’ve been alive!’

‘What if he didn’t give you the code? He gave it up to save Elizabeth but he does not care about me.’

‘I would’ve killed him.’

‘Yes. And Garrick would have killed me anyway. Then when he held a gun to Elizabeth’s head you would have had no way of saving her and I would still be dead.’

Red gritted his teeth and dropped his arms.

‘Luli. Her body. We’ve gotta…’ Red said.

‘It is already taken care of. Kate has her now.’

Red shuddered visibly.

‘Are you alright?’

‘Yes. It’s just the aftershocks of the stuff they gave me. I gather it enhances the pain receptors, like a reverse anaesthesia. Ah, miss those days when it was a good, honest beating.’

Another shudder went through Red, and this one shook him at the knees.

‘Sit down before you fall.’

Red sagged into the chair behind him and Dembe sat opposite him.

‘Dembe…’

‘Yes?’

‘I called Elizabeth before I came here. Told her that I was leaving for a bit, but that I would always be there for her if she needed me. She… asked if I was her father.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I denied it.’

‘Raymond…’

‘I wanted to say yes. Everything in me clamoured for it because I knew so soon after I came out of the box for her that she would accept me and I want that so, _so_ badly.

But Anslo thought to use her against me just after seeing my reaction when she was in danger. If our relationship became common knowledge she would be vulnerable to any of my enemies who might do the same.

Knowing who her father was – even if it was me – might have given her happiness for a time, but it is not really necessary for her to have a full and happy life and more than anything I want to keep her safe. Alive.’

‘And what of you?’

‘Me?’

His mouth went slack, and he frowned.

‘I feel … empty.

The truth is I am not her father. That I haven’t been since she was four years old and I left her with Sam to raise. Abandoned her. He was the only true father she has ever had. Will ever have. Now that I have denied her on top of everything else that is truer than it ever was. The part of me that was her father is as good as dead to her.

Is dead.’

Dembe could only imagine what it must be like to be in his friend’s head. To point to the single, most integral part of yourself and declare: ‘That part of me no longer exists, it is dead.’ Indeed, he did not really have to imagine because the pain that it caused him was obvious.

He wished Red wouldn’t do it to himself but he also knew that Red believed it was necessary. If he hadn’t compartmentalised as he did he certainly couldn't have stayed away from her as long as he had, or be with her now and keep himself from telling her.

Dembe had just never really understood why he stayed away at all.

‘Raymond.’

Red looked at him but Dembe could tell he still didn’t really see him. He was still dwelling in the void of his identity left behind from when he had once considered himself her father.

‘Who hired Garrick and what are your plans to retaliate?’

That did it. Red looked at him with gratitude, and then became the crime lord once more. He told him of Fitch and they made plans on how they would respond.


	10. The Good Samaritan (No. 106)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some parts of Red's dialogue here are going to sound rather similar to Red's speech to Liz in s5e7 when he's waiting for the driver of Dembe's truck. All credit goes to the writers of The Blacklist.

‘Why didn’t Newton come to me? If I had known his family was in danger I really would have protected them.’

‘I would have advised against it. It might have escalated beyond hiding them away and it would be foolish to risk a war with the Cabal over someone else’s family.’

Red threw his head back and laughed.

‘Oh, _you_ telling _me_ I should be more selfish. No one would ever believe it.’

Dembe smiled, but it wasn’t all there.

‘What is it?’

‘It is nothing.’

‘I can already see that it isn’t. Maybe I can help.’

Dembe fixed Red with an inscrutable look that made the subject feel transparent and judged. It was one that Dembe must have learned from him but knowing that did nothing to diminish its effectiveness.

‘You brought me on a mole hunt. Did you ever think that it could be me?’

‘No. I trust you.’

‘Unconditionally?’

Red hesitated.

‘You do not, after all.’

‘Don’t put words in my mouth.’

Red's words came out sharper than he meant them to be. It hurt that Dembe didn’t think he trusted him, even after all this time. It hurt more that he wasn’t entirely wrong.

‘I'm a cynical, ruthless man. Before you bound your life to mine I saw this world as a dark, faithless place and still find it practically impossible to trust anyone unconditionally.

But with you…

You are my friend. My living proof loyalty and love exist, and can exist for a man such as I. Every day I choose to put faith in that. To do otherwise would be to behave as if I was right about the world all along, and I much prefer it the way you see it.’

Dembe thought for a moment.

On one hand, Red had confirmed exactly what Dembe feared. He had invested his life, not to mention his trust, loyalty and love, in a man who was normally incapable of doing any of those things unconditionally. On the other, this same man was one who tried to be better. Made a decision every day to be better. To invest his love and trust in him against his own natural inclinations. Because of him. _For_ him.

Dembe walked to where Red sat and kissed the top of his head, expressing his pride and affection through physical contact. Red sighed and tilted his head towards Dembe as a sublime sense of peace settled over him. The kiss felt like a benediction.

Eventually the moment passed and Dembe returned to his seat.

‘Elizabeth did well today.’

‘Yes. I’m just so proud of her.' Red said. 'I’ve always been proud of her and I’ve never, ever been able to tell her.’

‘I’ll take you there now.’

‘What? No, it can wait till tomorrow.’

‘Raymond, it’s been a week. There is no need to pretend you don’t miss her.’

Red _did_ miss her terribly. He couldn’t believe he’d been ready to walk away from her forever simply because she'd tried to deny they had any sort of personal relationship. It could so easily have backfired on him and after the last week he would never again face the prospect of losing her so lightly. As for the idea of reuniting with her that very evening, Red discovered he couldn’t wait another moment. He stood and headed for the door.

‘Well come on then!’

Red threw the words imperiously over his shoulder as he was passing through the doorway. Dembe smiled and shook his head before following in his wake.


	11. The Alchemist (No. 101)

‘Brimley’s got his work cut out for him.’

Dembe noted that Red said it with professional respect. Over the last several days Red had run down people who’d been employed for odd jobs and the one who paid them. He’d killed them along with the mole in his own operation, but in Meera he’d recognised a fellow spy. She claimed that she hadn’t been spying on him, but even if that was true she was still CIA. Treacherous, but attractive.

‘What will you do with her afterwards?’

‘She may in fact be telling the truth. She might not have known where the blueprints of the Post Office would end up. If that’s the case, she’ll prove very useful in discovering who actually authorised it.’

Dembe nodded.

‘And I _was_ glad I didn’t have to kill Aram.’ Red said.

‘You would never have killed him if he was too slow to make the transfer.’

‘Hah! No, of course not. Actually, I was very careful to finish just after he did. And thank you, by the way, for indicating to me that his explanation was legitimate.' Red referenced the small nod Dembe had given him from his position behind Aram. 'I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about.’

‘You didn’t have to make him believe you would kill him at all.’

Red tilted his head and shrugged.

‘Probably not. But it was the simplest and most effective way to prove his innocence. I don’t think he’d have agreed to my little test if I’d just asked nicely. Besides, his skills will be extremely useful to me and he’ll be far more inclined to use them on my behalf now that he fears me just a little more than is actually warranted. And it’s not just fear. He was _grateful_ towards me for not killing him. Giving him the information needed to prove his innocence didn’t hurt either.’

Red grinned at Dembe in genuine contentment.

‘We’re closer to finding the leak at the Post Office than we were and on top of that, I have ensured that one of the most highly skilled computer people in the world simply won’t be able to deny me anything.

Let’s have a scotch!’

Dembe grinned, and poured each of them a glass.

Some time later Dembe took a call from the man watching the Keen household. He'd been given standing orders to photograph anyone who entered the Keens’ lives after Red handed himself into the FBI. Dembe showed Red the photo he’d just sent. It was of a slight woman with a supercilious expression and mousy brown hair. It showed her letting herself in through the front door to attend the Keens' baby shower.

‘She looks familiar,’ Red recognised Lucy Brooks. According to the alchemist’s client list she was currently calling herself Jolene Parker.

He pressed his lips together into a moue of consternation.

‘After all this effort I put into finding her she just turns up by herself.’

‘What do you plan to do?’

Red only gave him a look Dembe recognised from his childhood, one that said “now really, you should be able to figure that out for yourself.” Dembe disliked it but he supposed Red was right. Red would do what he always did when he encountered information such as this. Wait, watch and learn.

Dembe set his glass aside and saw that Red had lost the celebratory mood as well. Jolene’s appearance in Liz’s life had reminded them that they were fighting a war on two fronts. It was just as well the mole hunt would be tied up in the next few days. They would soon need to invest all their attention on this mysterious adversary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd just like to acknowledge that the Aram stuff happened in The Good Samaritan. I deliberately put him here instead because it flowed better after mentioning Meera than it would have if I tried to jam him into the last chapter.


	12. The Cyprus Agency (No. 64)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking that Carla and Jennifer were Red's wife and daughter I essentially wrote off the mysterious tragedy surrounding Red's family as early instalment madness, and gave them fake deaths so I'd still be able to write about it. If the imposter theory reveal means he actually has a tragic backstory that isn't centred around Liz and Katarina, well, I'm inclined to count that as a good thing - 19/05/18

‘Diane Fowler said something as I killed her. Claimed she knew “the truth” of what happened to my family.

She reckoned I’d rush to keep her alive if I thought she'd tell me what happened to them. I killed her anyway. But I have to find out what happened. Something about the way she said “the truth” won’t leave me alone. She was gloating, as if I knew less than I thought I did. As if I’ve been deceived somehow. The only aspect of that night I’ve never really questioned was that they were dead. But there weren’t any bodies. Just blood. Just so, so much blood. It tested positive for their DNA but tests can be falsified, and the alchemist has shown that even the very blood sample can be forged.

If they’re alive I need to find them. Get them back. I’ve always suspected the Cabal had something to do with it, and I'd say Diane confirmed it. If I can get Alan in a room with me I can _make_ him tell me what happened, and if they’re alive…’

‘Raymond. Calm down.’

‘Like hell I will.’

‘You are not thinking clearly. The only reason you think they might be alive after two decades of assuming otherwise is the word of a woman who would say anything to keep you from killing her.

While Alan Fitch will tolerate Diane Fowler’s death and disappearance, he would not be so magnanimous if you targeted him personally. You cannot afford to alienate him.

You know this.’

‘Yes. But if they are alive and the Cabal has them…’

‘It has been two decades. If they ever did take them, if they still live, they are likely a lot healthier and safer than you fear. They have no incentive to hurt them. The only purpose their abduction served was to make you believe otherwise. In all likelihood the Cabal set them up with new identities and allowed them to live a relatively normal life with very little interference on their part.’

‘That sounds far too good to be true.’

‘If you cannot believe that you might as well return to believing they are dead. Either way there is nothing you can do for them.’

Red scowled at him. It was dark, malevolent, but Dembe was unfazed.

‘Tell me about the case. About Elizabeth.’

It was an obvious diversion, and after a while Red played along. He knew that Dembe was talking sense and he had precious little of his own.

‘Remember that conversation I had with her, when I told her to run the DNA of the kids and look for familial matches? I was so certain that the children weren’t registered as missing because their parents were criminals. Shows me for projecting my problems onto everyone else.’

‘If their parents weren’t criminals, then why weren’t their children in the system?’

Dembe knew most of the particulars already, and Red knew that he knew. But this wasn’t about telling Dembe something he didn’t already know.

‘The mothers had been abducted, kept in a fertility clinic, impregnated via IVF and their babies delivered all while they were kept comatose.

Oh my God, I was so wrong it was funny!’

While Red was doing a passable impression of himself in a good mood, Dembe could see he was struggling.

‘And Elizabeth?’

‘She decided not to adopt. As we speak Tom is licking his wounds with the woman he knows as Jolene Parker. From what I can see they both work for my adversary, but while she knows who Tom is, he has no idea she’s anything more than a substitute teacher.

It’ll be interesting to see how that turns out. And …

I can’t do this. You’re right. We can’t go around guns blazing just on what Diane said. Not with everything so fragile with the Cabal, and my adversary lurking in the wings. But it’s too soon for me to pretend that Diane didn’t get under my skin.

I’ll see you tomorrow.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the writers wrote season 1 without really knowing whether Red's family was alive or not, so they kind of teased both plot lines at once. I'll use this fake death to try and synthesise the teased plot line with the actual one. It won't be perfect (dates and such) but I hope you'll bear with me.


	13. Madeline Pratt (No. 73)

‘Are you alright?’

‘Don’t tell me you fell for that too.’

Dembe knew that the grief and the story Red had used to manipulate Madeline were both all too real, but he took the hint and left it alone. Red figured it was just as well, taking that night out of its box twice in one day was not a good idea, especially so soon after Diane had seen fit to upend it and scatter its contents all across the floor.

Neither of them said much for a while after that. Red was too far inside his own head to interact with anyone else, but Dembe kept him company all the same.

Then Red shook himself like a dog just after he’s come running out of the sea.

‘Watching Lizzy play criminal really was something. I don’t want to bring her down to my level but my God, it was fun to watch her interact with Madeline. She palmed her phone without her knowledge! _And_ kept her SIM card. I’ll admit, the initial heist was a bit of a mishap, but I enjoyed being at the Syrian embassy with her all the same.’

He’d been deliriously happy dancing with her. He still wasn’t entirely used to being in the same room as her, interacting with her on a daily basis. Especially since he’d only just returned from the mole hunt. He could scarcely believe that he had an opportunity to solidify their proximity by holding her as well as seeing and listening to her.

But it wasn’t his dance with Elizabeth that would keep him warm on cold nights.

He held Madeline against him with her back against his chest. His lips nuzzled against her bare shoulder and his cock brushed against her arse as they swayed from side to side. When the alarm went off he’d been perilously close to forgetting why he was there in the first place. And the _look_ she threw over her shoulder as she walked away from him on Bashar’s arm. Haughty and scheming. Smouldering.

‘And Madeline…’

His voice was deep, husky, and his mouth hung open just enough for Dembe to see that his tongue had curled up so that its tip caressed the roof of his mouth.

‘She really is stunning.’

Then he shrugged, the corners of his lips pulled down towards his chin.

‘It’s a shame about Florence.’

Dembe knew the bare details, but at the time he’d been spending staying with his daughter.

‘You could never have built a life with her in the first place.’

‘No.’

To Red, Florence was never really meant to be anything more than a last hoorah before he surrendered himself to the uncertain mercy of the FBI. He’d known it was a step he’d take ever since Liz's wedding, and he’d watched them go through the process of adoption. Set plans in place so he could prevent her from bringing a child into their farce of a marriage.

He’d known he would have the FBI dancing to his tune within minutes of surrendering to them. But he was still giving up his freedom. It might have been exactly where he wanted to be but they’d still chained him, kept him in a glass box and put a tracking chip in his neck. All the while there had been a chance – small though it was – that they might decide to take credit for his arrest, chuck him in a hole somewhere and attempt to torture his information out of him.

There were times in that first couple of weeks when he’d thought wistfully of the future he might have had with Madeline, if circumstances had been different.

‘Why did you let her think you’d run away with her in the first place?’

‘Would you believe I had no idea she thought we were at that stage? I was just so preoccupied with my plans to surrender to the FBI, and with using her as a distraction from that. It took me completely by surprise when I realised she expected we’d have a future together. That night I left without a word of explanation.

Not one of my finer moments. She was right to be angry at me.’

His ploy in that fake jail cell would have made her even angrier. He would steer clear of her for a while, wait for her to cool down. Assuming she ever did. It was probably for the best that their encounters were so far apart but honestly, he was already looking forward to the next one.


	14. The Judge (No. 57)

Red burst into inexplicable laughter, and Dembe smiled in response.

‘What is it?’

‘There was something Harold said, earlier.

He is absolutely certain I knew he was going to be targeted when I gave them the case. That I knew all along I’d be able to save him, and thereby have him in my debt. I’m flattered but I’m not _quite_ omniscient. The Judge’s files covered hundreds of cases. I had a good idea of where to find them, but no way to get to them. I had no idea she had one that would lead to Harold, let alone that she would be pursuing him just as we were pursuing her. I didn’t even know for sure the Judge existed, until she released Mark Hastings. For goodness sake, I thought she was a man!

Of course, I didn’t tell him that. And I did take advantage of his debt all the same. He knows I expect his help in the coming war.’

‘If you didn’t know about her interest in Cooper, why were you interested in the Judge in the first place?’

‘I just love the story…’

Dembe restrained the urge to roll his eyes. Sometimes it was hard to tell if Red honestly misunderstood the intent of a question, or deliberately went on an unrelated tangent. In any case, he was interested in what he had to say.

‘…Wrongfully accused men and women, appealing to an alternative justice system to settle the score. They’d been cheated, robbed of their freedom. They all had hope that someone would bat for them, but it wasn’t really hope, was it? Ruth couldn’t do anything for them personally. No break outs, no stays of execution. Only a promise that any unjust punishment would be visited on the guilty party. Not hope, anger. Vindication. All these people outsourcing their revenge to someone who had the opportunity and the capacity to carry it out when they had none themselves.’

‘Why did you set the FBI on her?’

‘… Ah. she executed an asset of mine. Judge Bryan Wright. Having an actual judge on the payroll can be rather useful and I invested millions to have him on retainer. Until The Judge kidnapped and executed him. _That_ was why I wanted to go after her. When she let Mark Hastings go, I simply saw an opportunity to settle a score of my own.’

It occurred to Red just how often he found himself avenging some associate or another. He grimaced and shook his head.

‘The sheer number of people who’ve been harmed because of their connection to me. It’s…’

‘You cannot hold yourself personally responsible. They all made their choice.’

‘Not my wife and daughter. Do you know, I never managed to properly avenge their deaths. Not for lack of trying, though.’

Oh, he’d tried for months. Chasing down even the smallest of leads, killing anyone who was even rumoured to be involved. One night he’d stopped and looked at the body lying at his feet. It was a boy, no older than seventeen. He’d been part of a gang that was said to have had some sort of role that night. As he looked at him he realised he had no real idea whether or not he was actually guilty and that held for all the broken, lifeless bodies he’d left in his wake.

 _You’d better be right._ The words he’d used, to talk Ruth out of killing Cooper. He’d spoken them so clearly. Forcefully. Because he knew exactly what it was like to look at a corpse you’ve made and then realise that you were probably wrong.

Dembe watched Red’s mood change, turn dark and self-loathing. He crossed over to him, put a hand on his shoulder.

‘Oh, Dembe, you’re too good to me.’

Even as he said it, Red clung to his hand and Dembe stayed by his side.


	15. Mako Tanida (No. 83)

Red got into the car without speaking. Dembe didn’t ask if he was alright. He knew that he wasn’t, and that he wouldn’t want to talk about it. So he drove off from the ballet theatre in silence, and didn’t comment as he glanced in the rear view mirror to see Red dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief.

Red didn’t speak at all on the drive to the hotel, or as he was nursing his first finger of scotch, or his second. Dembe had settled in for an evening of companionable silence when Red finally spoke.

‘Did you deliver the package to Donald?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good. He’ll need that closure. When I warned Donald about Tanida I thought I was doing it because I would have done the same for anyone. But after Audrey’s death, when he came to me filled with anger and hate he reminded me of myself. I felt responsible for him. His welfare. It was the same in that box, when I was treating over his ravaged leg.’

Garrick had mentioned Brussels, tried to make them fight amongst themselves but he’d only succeeded in doing the opposite. Five years of studying him, learning about him, so he could stay one step ahead. Knowing him. All the while Ressler had been doing the same. Got so caught up in him that he lost his fiancé. There was a strange sort of bond to be found in that, between the hunter and the hunted.

‘I told him that I would have tried to save anyone who was dying in front of me. And that was true. But there in that box Ressler had briefly become one of _my_ people. I knew in that moment that I would help him when he needed it, and hurt anyone who hurt him.’

Dembe nodded. It was convenient for Red to present himself as someone who didn’t care about anyone else on earth. But through every level of his operation and outside of it there were people Red cared deeply about. People like Mary; the suburban mother who laundered his cash in her garage, the women who helped Mr Kaplan clean up his messes and Justin Sperry; whose charity he donated millions to every year. If one of his fellow criminals harmed any of them they would be surprised and dismayed at the level of enmity they’d attracted.

But it seemed to Dembe that Red had a very different memory of events than he did.

‘You were prepared to kill Agent Ressler in order to save Elizabeth. And me.’

‘That was why it was brief. I hadn’t thought of it much since then, but it was the same thing this week. He is _mine_. I wasn’t going to let Tanida kill him, or turn him into me.’

Red fell into a reflective silence.

‘Do you think it was hypocritical of me, to tell him to go home?’

‘It meant more from you than it would have from someone without your experience.’

Red shrugged. He supposed that was true. He’d said it because it needed to be said. He’d known just looking at him that there was no turning him back. That the only thing to do was give him direction, prevent him from going on a generalised rampage. Red knew just how easy it was to fall into one, and just what it took to shock you out of it.

So he’d made sure Ressler knew Tanida was dead. And the letter. When he wrote it, it had felt like an acknowledgement of a shared experience. A shared grief, and mourning. He wondered if he would have expressed his own anguish so openly, made himself so vulnerable, if it had been any other time of the year. If he’d regret it in a week or so.

‘Do you think he liked the letter, and the gift?’

‘Raymond, I didn’t wait around to find out.’

‘Ah.’

Red got the distinct impression that Dembe was laughing at him. And yes, he had to admit he’d made himself look vaguely ridiculous. As if he were some boy anxiously wanting to hear if his valentine had liked the gift he’d left on the front doorstep. Nonetheless, Red thought it would be useful if Ressler felt a measure of kinship towards him. Red supposed he’d have to wait and see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've deliberately ignored the whole "Liz feeling Red's presence as she was doing ballet." I've pretty much decided that the writers were tying up lose ends from season 1, when they weren't really sure whether or not Jennifer was alive. There's just so much in the ballet ritual and the letter that implies Jennifer's tragic death. This feeds into my fake-death approach to writing Red's first family.


	16. Ivan (No. 88)

He cradled Liz like a child as she sobbed into his shoulder. The music box played the lullaby as he kissed her hair, told her she was going to be okay. Her discovery changed things, and he’d need to respond accordingly. He needed to unpack his own emotional response as well (relief, but also apprehension. How long could he expect to hide his own connection to Tom?) but all that would wait. This was about her. Her pain, and anguish.

Everything in him reached out to her to support her, protect her. He could almost convince himself that this is what it is like to be a real father to her. That he’d done this for her a hundred times before.

After she cried herself out, he kissed her hair once more.

Dembe came into view and handed her a hanky. She left, taking the music box – and the hanky – with her. Red walked her to the door and when he turned back into the house he saw the look of disapproval Dembe was giving him.

‘What?’

‘You are happy.’

‘Yes. She needed me, and I was there for her.’

‘Her life has fallen apart, and you are happy.’

Dembe watched as Red’s expression contorted into an angry scowl. He prepared himself to be the target of a scathing retort, only to watch as Red’s face went flat and expressionless. Red had known his anger wasn’t real. He’d reflexively taken refuge in it because it was easier than shame.

‘You’re right. It’s just…’

It was just that she’d accused him of ruining her life, of lying to her, manipulating her. _I don’t need evidence to connect this to you._ She was right, of course, that Jolene had targeted her because of him. But the way she said it, as if his very presence in her life ruined it, corrupted it. As if he could only ever be a source of darkness in her life. She had left wounds that had only begun to heal as he cradled her in his arms. As she trusted him, allowed him to make it better. It was just that her behaviour towards him in general vacillated between suspicion, anger and a fragile comradery that never, ever seemed to actually last. They’d joked harmlessly about how Harrison Lee had evaded arrest mere seconds before that conversation had turned ugly. It was just that it seemed to him that the only times he ever felt truly close to her were when she was upset, and relied on him for comfort.

But that didn’t justify his own selfishness.

Dembe saw the corner of Red’s right lower lip go slack, and his shoulders slump.

‘Raymond…’

Dembe wouldn’t take back what he said but it hurt him to see Red’s contentment morph into shame and despair. In some ways he would have preferred the anger.

‘No, Dembe. It’s fine. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’

He took a few steps to the doorway and turned back.

‘Oh, and Dembe, put together a team to liberate Harrison Lee, would you? They can grab him while he’s being transported. I want to offer him a job.’

‘Raymond, I don’t think…’

‘What? That he’s up to it? The boy’s a genius! He’s so good he bested even Ivan, and he’s no push over himself. Or are you concerned he’s a little unstable? A little mad? All he needs is someone to explain to him the proper way to attract a girl’s attention and get to know her. I’ll tell him that he should steer clear of any grand romantic gestures until at least the third date.’

Dembe smiled at the thought, but there was still one minor issue.

‘He killed someone.’

‘Well, yeah, Accidentally.’

Dembe raised his eyebrows.

‘Ok, we’ll discourage that as well. No killing, and no stalking but he’ll get to walk around freely with a pretty hefty salary and an opportunity to really put his skills to good use.’

‘I’ll see to it.’

Red nodded his thanks and hovered there, at the threshold. His mood had improved somewhat and it was still pretty early. He could go back into the room, pretend nothing had happened and trust that Dembe would follow suit. But the shame and despair still sat heavy in his gut and he found that he’d rather be alone.

He raised his head enough that he could glance at Dembe in the edge of his field of vision.

‘Goodnight.’

With that he went off to bed.


	17. Milton Bobbit (No. 135)

Red and Dembe sat side by side sharing a packet of pretzels.

‘Elizabeth expected us to torture Christopher.’ Red said. ‘She _wanted_ us to hurt him. Had a go at it herself before we arrived. She was vicious, merciless. She’s changing. My life is already influencing her.’

‘She was distressed when he threw himself out of the window.’

Red laughed.

‘Yes, there’s that. I can’t imagine what she thought we could do for him.’

Their conversation lapsed for a bit and Red’s thoughts drifted to the surveillance footage taken from inside her house. He’d known the cameras were there since the day they were planted. The man he had watching her house had been there as they broke into her house to set them up.

He could have told her, or had them removed himself. Dembe had told him he ought to. Instead he’d preferred to wait, thinking that they might lead him to his adversary. It had been the Cabal instead. After Anslo, he’d known exactly who the living surveillance man was and where to find him. Red's men had been watching him the entire time he’d been watching Liz.

Watching the footage had made his skin crawl. Seeing the way they argued, all the times Tom made a show of being hurt, disappointed in her just so that he could control her. Make her feel small. Seeing him dare to touch her. Tom had brought a violent death down upon him the very first time he slept with her. Now that Liz finally knew the truth of her so called husband, Red would soon be able to finally kill him.

But not all Red’s disgust was aimed at Tom. When he gave her the footage he’d thought she might ask how he’d known to take it, how long he’d known it existed. She probably assumed that he hadn’t known any longer than her, and that it was Mr Kaplan who told him. But even putting that aside he’d thought she might criticise him for keeping it for so long. For watching it. This was one time he’d deserved and expected her suspicion and anger. _Not_ receiving it left him uneasy.

Dembe, for his part, was relaxed and content. They’d spent far too much time doing nothing. He was a patient man but his was the patience of a soldier, while he thought that Red’s passivity often led him to became a spectator in his own war. Their interrogation of Christopher hadn’t come to much but it had been good to actually do something. He’d had fun.

He and Red had been to the exhibition once before and they’d been meaning to return. Dembe had convinced the care home where Christopher's mother - Shirley - lived that he was a volunteer Christopher had booked to take her out for an excursion. Dembe found that she was a kind and near sighted woman. He listened to stories of a young Christopher, while Red no doubt mused aloud to the man in question about the terror of clowns and puppets. When Dembe and Shirley moved into their field of vision he knew Red wouldn’t need to threaten her explicitly in order to assure Christopher’s compliance. Neither of them would have hurt her, but they saw no problem in making her son believe they would. As they waited for Liz, Dembe got more enjoyment out of watching The Three Stooges with Red than in the show itself. His friend was so easily amused and laughed without restraint. And all the while there was a man in the next room shackled to the bathroom sink.

It was Red as Dembe had always known him. Dark and sinister when he needed to be, yet childish and giddy when given half a chance.

Dembe’s thoughts returned to something that had been niggling at the back of his mind for hours. Tom had said _I’m the one who is accountable to Berlin._ A city in and of itself couldn’t hold anyone accountable to anything. Red seemed to think it was someone – or a bank or something – _in_ Berlin, but what if…

‘“Berlin” could refer to a person.’

Red tilted his head to the side, and tried to match his mental image of his mysterious adversary with someone who would choose to name himself after a city.

‘Nah, I just don’t see it.’

Dembe shrugged and helped himself to another pretzel.


	18. The Pavlovich Brothers (Nos. 119-122)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up for implied/referenced BDSM, and a brief reference to the sexual abuse of a child. Also, it mentions the fight between Liz and Tom in this episode, and there's another one here between Red and Katarina.
> 
> And mention of Red as Katarina's target - 19/05/18

‘Was it wise to allow Elizabeth to confront Tom alone?’ Dembe asked

‘Wise? Probably not.’

But Red had seen that she needed it. _I swear to God if you tell me to be patient one more time…_ He’d understood what she wanted and he’d given it to her even though it went against his own better judgement. She was the one who'd been married to the man, after all.

‘She needed the closure it gave her. To interact with him when he wasn’t playing the perfect husband. She’s also been carrying around a lot of fury that needed an outlet.’

‘Was she hurt?’

‘She’s a little battered and bruised. The real casualty was their furniture.’

‘I would have thought you’d be more concerned about her.’

‘I’d feel very differently about it if it was an ordinary case of domestic abuse, or if it had just been some man off the street. But she entered into that conflict as the aggressor, and as it progressed she wasn’t some victim of her husband’s rages. She was an FBI agent confronting a spy. I can’t go around killing every man who bruises her a little in the course of her duty. Especially since a lot of the time she gets the best of them.’

‘Not in this case. She wouldn’t have let him go.’

‘True. I knew that was a possibility, but I was confident that he wouldn’t seriously hurt her. He thinks he cares for her; he wouldn’t have stayed with her against my wishes, gone over to my adversary otherwise. He wasn’t a real danger to her physically. It’s her emotional, psychological health he’s truly harmed. But now she knows he was never the man she thought he was, she’ll grieve for the life she thought she had and then she’ll be able to move on.’

Dembe frowned.

‘What makes you so sure? You continued your affair with Katarina.’

‘Elizabeth was so desperate to believe Tom wasn’t a spy because she needed him to be ordinary. To balance out the stress of working with the FBI. Of working with me. She still needs that and she can’t get it from him.’

Red remembered the way Liz had defended Tom’s innocence while they were hunting Fredrick Barnes. She had focused on his normalcy: the teaching job and the fact that he knew nothing of the terrible world she and Red worked in. Tom’s ordinary life was so important to her that she mentioned this where someone else might have defended their romantic bond. Even after Constantine finally found out Katarina was a spy he had refused to believe that she didn’t love him. Only him.

‘My relationship with Katarina was entirely different.

I had a normal life, and though I’d do almost anything to get it back now, at the time I thought it ought to have belonged to someone else. My work had already taken its toll. Its violence, secrecy, mistrust, it all seemed far more real to me than my life back at home. A self proclaimed miserable housewife, and a daughter who just kept growing so fast I had to reacquaint myself with her after every long absence. Win her over again every time I returned.

When I met Katarina she was calling herself Christine Mitchell, and my affair with _her_ was practically recreational. Then one night we were having dinner. I looked up from my plate and caught the tail end of this look she’d been giving me over the rim of her glass of Cabernet. It was the look of a killer.’

He’d recognised it from seeing it in the mirror each morning as he shaved. At the time all the deaths he’d caused were justifiable in terms of patriotic duty. But he was a killer all the same.

‘What did you do?’

‘Do? Nothing. I continued my meal as if it had never happened. But I never tried to convince myself that I imagined it. I put too much stock in my ability to read people to seek refuge in wilful ignorance. Besides, why would I bother? I had no real affection for Christine, or who I’d been led to believe she was. Realising she wasn’t who I’d thought she was only made me far more interested in her.’

His memories of the next seven months were hazy at best. When he was with his family it was like he was looking at them from miles away even when they were right there in front of him. With Katarina everything was all so close up and overwhelming it blurred at the edges. He analysed every movement she made, fixated on any small detail that might belie the image of the harmless marriage counsellor she’d constructed. He was so drawn to her he very nearly lost himself. In his saner moments it had occurred to him to fear the affect she had on him, but during that time he was very rarely sane.

‘What happened?’

‘I’d had a man watching her, tailing her. He went missing. She’d made him, of course. And made him tell her of me. I could have guessed as much, but I, ah. Wasn’t thinking. Turned up at her place as we’d arranged. Took me quite by surprise when she attacked me the moment I walked in the door. As we fought, I saw her clearly for the first time. She was fierce, merciless. I was enthralled.’

He half scoffed at himself, half groaned.

‘I was far too caught up in her, in the fight itself to care whether I won or lost. Finally she pulled a gun on me, had me sit on a chair so she could tie me to it. I was all too happy to oblige. She kept the gun trained on me, told me to give her one good reason why she shouldn’t kill me. I told her that if I died, her husband would find out about her intelligence work. Her affair with me. I’d managed to dig up Constantine, ascertain that though he seemed to love her what he really wanted was a family. Until she gave him a child she couldn’t be certain of his devotion, and she needed him as a cover.’

Red closed his eyes. Took a moment to relive the story he was in the middle of telling.

‘Bound to that chair with her gun trained at me I was very aware of how I must have looked to her. On the face of it she was the one with all the power. But I spoke and held myself with the utmost arrogance. My were knees spread in front of me, and I tilted my chin in such a way that made it seem as if I was the one looming over her. It was deliberately provoking and from the way she looked at me I knew the moment her bloodlust turned into another sort of aggression entirely.

She fucked me into that chair, without even untying me first.’

Dembe looked at him askance. In his experience sex and physical restraints was not a positive combination.

‘What? It’s not like I hadn’t been ready for her since she’d tied me to the chair in the first place. Before that, even.’

Dembe’s mind took the phrase “ready for her” and circled back to the idea of Red sitting in front of Katarina with his knees spread in front of him. Too late, he decided that really wasn’t a mental image he needed.

‘Who was your contingency plan?’

‘It was Sam.’

Sam had been his confidante through all that, a source of dry wit and normalcy. After Red’s relationship with Katarina changed Sam had been their go-between. His life as a grifter meant that he could communicate with her, be seen with her at times when Red couldn’t.

And he’d killed him.

Red was suddenly aware that this was the first time he and Dembe had talked of Sam since. Dembe opened his mouth to say something but Red was quite sure he didn’t want to hear it. Anything Dembe had to say would surely be his due and he knew they would have to talk about it. But it had taken him by surprise. He wasn’t ready.

So he stood suddenly. Made some airy comment about how late it was and left.


	19. The Kingmaker (No. 42)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Discussion of euthanasia

Dembe watched Liz leave but he didn’t go to Red immediately. He knew he wouldn’t be welcome. He waited until it was late in the evening and when he did go and find him, he hovered at the door. Asking wordlessly if he wanted the company. Dembe watched Red think about it for a second before gesturing him inside.

He sat at the table in front of their unfinished card game while Red lingered at the window. Dembe wasn’t going to be the first to speak. Red sent him out of the room when Liz arrived to confront him and Dembe didn’t expect Red to want to talk about it in any depth now. He was just _there_ and it did bring Red a measure of comfort to have him within reach.

After some time, Red broke the silence.

‘She didn’t know I’d killed him. All she knew was that I’d been there when he died. I could have told her that I’d simply witnessed his death.’

Dembe merely nodded. Red wasn’t looking for credit. He understood that there was likely a part of Red that wished he had allowed himself the easy lie. Spared himself her censure and hatred.

‘She will forgive you in time.’

‘What makes you so sure? After all, this is the first indication you’ve given me that you forgive me for it.’

‘I would have told you last week but you didn’t seem to want to hear it.’

Dembe said it with light hearted teasing and Red quirked a small smile in response. He’d been so sure that Dembe had been about to call him a murderer (which he was). It still sounded too good to be true.

Dembe saw that he still doubted him.

‘That night I asked if you would have killed him if he wasn’t sick, but he wanted to tell Elizabeth anyway.’

‘I remember.’

‘What if he was dying and asked you to end his suffering, but he had no intention of telling Elizabeth anything?’

‘I would have still killed him. He _wanted_ to die.’

Dembe nodded in acknowledgement. He knew it was a service Red provided for associates, friends and employees with terminal illnesses. It was even joked about in undertones when they fancied Red wouldn’t hear. _Come work for Raymond Reddington!_ They said to each other. _The life expectancy’s shit but the widows and orphans fund is great. If the job doesn’t kill you a good death can still be arranged._

What Dembe didn’t know was that Red had watched his mother die of brain cancer. It was merciless and inexorable. It slowly robbed her of her capacity to move independently, and had been well on its way to stealing her memory and ability to communicate when she died. The doctors were all mildly surprised. From the way it was progressing she could have lived for months longer, but then, they told themselves each case was different. Red knew better. His father had overdosed her on morphine at her request. Put her out of her misery. Even then Red had understood that hers was an empty grave that was filled none too soon. He was fourteen.

‘You did what was kind. Decent.’ Said Dembe. ‘Whether or not you killed him to keep him silent is irrelevant. You would still have acted the same if that wasn’t an issue.’

Red turned Dembe’s words around in his head. It seemed too easy to him. It wasn’t enough to convince him that she would forgive him, and he knew he would never truly forgive himself.

But Dembe had helped him find a measure of peace all the same.

Red sat down across the table from Dembe and picked up the hand of cards he’d been playing that afternoon. Later, they would have to go over the other events of the day: the continued attacks from his adversary and his failure to get any useful information on him; the Cabal’s refusal to assist him; the fractures that were showing in his own organisation. But for now they played cards. Red’s confrontation with Liz still weighed heavy on him but he did smile occasionally and Dembe counted every one a personal triumph.


	20. Berlin (No. 8)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicidal thoughts.

Liz had told Red to stay. She hadn’t truly forgiven him for Sam, and he would give her some space for a couple of months but she wanted him in her life. Or rather, she didn’t dislike him enough to tell him to go away. Red would usually find cause to be happy about that, but it seemed that it was Dembe he’d managed to alienate this time.

Red looked at him warily. They were driving to their house for the night and his friend’s silence was oppressive. When they were together it was usually inviting, telling him that while he didn’t have anything to say he’d listen if Red wanted to speak. This silence forbade speech and he’d been like this since they reunited after the FBI transport vehicle. Even then he’d known something was wrong. He would have hugged him but Dembe had only given him a blank stare and he’d known it would be unwelcome.

He had absolutely no idea what he’d done to make him so furious.

Once they arrived Dembe stopped the car and headed inside without even looking at him and Red trailed in his wake.

‘What’s wrong?’

Dembe held his silence for so long Red was worried he wouldn’t answer.

‘You let the FBI take you.’

‘I couldn’t have done anything to prevent it. They were already in position when we got there.’

‘You didn’t try. You didn’t even care. Tell me I’m wrong.’

Red knew he couldn’t. Liz’s inability to let him be tortured to death in some black site had been far more relevant to him than the fact that it would happen regardless of whether she wanted it or not.

When he handed her the gun and sunk to his knees he’d truly been at peace for the first time in decades. He would die knowing that he’d done everything in his power to protect her and that on some level, she cared for him. That she’d been willing to overlook at least one of the horrible things he’d done to her in an effort to keep her safe. If she could do that, maybe, just maybe, she would forgive him for the rest when the Caretaker sent that letter.

And if she didn’t, well, he’d be beyond caring.

When he and Fitch planned his ‘escape’ he’d felt life and purpose return to him. It had hurt like blood rushing back into a numbed limb.

Not once in all that time had he thought of Dembe. Not since he sent him out of danger at that park.

‘I’m sorry.’

‘No. Make me understand.’

‘I enjoy life, and its simple pleasures. Good food and wine, and good books. The beauty you can find in the world, and in people. Sex.

But I won’t deny there have been times when it feels more like a burden than a blessing. When I wished that it would all, just, _stop_.’

He’d stayed at Cape May after Katarina died. Waiting for one of his enemies to catch up to him and finish him off. It was Constantin who found him. He cursed him for ruining his life, destroying his family. He blamed him for Katarina’s death more accurately than he knew and threatened to kill him if he didn’t tell him where Liz was. Red laughed at him until he was breathless and weeping. Once he’d finally regained the ability to string two words together he invited him to go ahead. Told him he could put the gun in his mouth, make it look like a suicide.

Red had knelt in front of him with the taste of cold metal on in his tongue, longing for him to pull the trigger. Instead Constantin holstered his gun and left him there. He must have realised he could do nothing more terrible to Red than to let him live.

Afterwards, Red knelt there unmoving for ages until finally one clear thought rose from the tangled net of grief, guilt and self-loathing he’d made for himself. The child. Lizzy. Constantin wasn’t the only one looking for her. There were others with far greater resources, and wouldn’t be put off so easily. People who would use her. Hurt her. He was satisfied that she was protected in the short term but that wasn’t nearly good enough. Her safety needed to be guaranteed for her whole life and for that he’d need to live.

‘Elizabeth is my reason for doing what I do. For doing anything at all, when it comes down to it. Because I don’t really know what else to do, and also in a futile effort to atone for what I took from her when she was a child.

It seemed fitting that my death would ultimately be at her hands. The way she changed her mind, showed that she did care whether I lived or died felt like a gift. One that I’d longed for with all that I am, but never dared hope I would actually receive.

Next to that, my impending doom seemed pretty irrelevant.’

‘And what of me? Why should I bother when you care so little for yourself?’

Red paused, trying to put words to his thoughts and feelings.

‘Elizabeth is my reason for living, but none of it has ever been particularly easy. Neither staying away from her for so long, nor working in such proximity to her now. But you make it bearable.’

Red broke off, tilting his head to one side.

‘“Bearable.” That’s not really the right word. It sounds like you provide the minimum amount of support to keep me sane and functioning. That’s not right at all. The truth is you bring such joy simply by being there. Oh, like a few days ago with that devious crossword puzzle. The way you let me stew on the clues that stumped me, and then plucked the answer out of the air just as I was about to figure it out for myself.’

He broke off laughing and Dembe smiled in response.

‘And when I need it, you always find a way to give me a measure of solace. Only you can decide if that justifies your personal investment in my life but don’t for one moment think you haven’t made a difference, or that you aren’t appreciated for it. I … appreciate you a great deal.’

Dembe was silent for a moment, thinking.

‘Let’s put on The Three Stooges.’

Red threw his head back and laughed.

‘Yes, let’s.’


	21. Lord Baltimore (No. 104)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mention of Carla's fake death

Red sat on the couch of the dim-lit hotel room with Berlin’s words ringing in his head. _I’m going to send her back to you, piece by piece by piece…_ He stared at the box with his wife’s finger in it until he stood abruptly. He stormed into the other room and rounded on Dembe.

‘The package that was just delivered? It was Carla’s finger. Berlin thinks I’m responsible for abducting, maiming and ultimately killing his daughter and that’s exactly what he’s gonna do to her.

This is your fault. If you hadn’t talked me out looking for her last year we could have prevented all this. She could be safe and happy at this very moment but you just had to convince me it would be a wild goose chase if we tried. You idiot. And more fool me for listening to you.’

He didn’t raise his voice; he didn’t need to. His words were edged with anger and scorn. He was right in Dembe’s personal space, managing to loom over him despite Dembe’s height advantage.

‘Are you done?’

‘Done? I’m only just getting started. She’s gonna have bits and pieces cut off her while she’s still alive. A finger here, a tooth there until there’s nothing left of her and we could have prevented it. Why am I the only one of us who seems to care? Who feels guilty? Who blames himself? Who…’

Red thought about what he was saying, and the anger left him. The person he was really angry at was himself. Dembe was just a convenient target.

‘I’m sorry, Dembe.’

Without the anger making him seem larger than he was Red appeared to shrink in on himself. Dembe felt compelled to reach out to him, draw him close, and Red went gladly. After a moment or two Red found that he’d clutched onto the front of Dembe’s t-shirt like a clingy child, but he didn’t have it in him to be embarrassed.

‘I know, Raymond.’

Red felt Dembe’s words against his ear and they were far more gentle, compassionate and forgiving than he deserved but Red took strength from them all the same. The truth was he needed it. He had come to remember his history with Carla as a series of failures. Failure as a husband, failure to keep her safe, failure to avenge her death after the fact. He couldn’t bear failing her now. If it took Carla being captured, tortured and murdered for Red to find out that she’d been alive all this time he would have much preferred to live in ignorance.

Dembe finally grasped Red by the shoulders to look down at him with concern. Seeing that, Red experienced a moment of belated self consciousness and took refuge in the formality of their employer/employee dynamic.

‘The finger, it’s on the coffee table in there.’

Dembe wasn’t offended by the abrupt change in tone. If anything he was reassured that Red was behaving more like himself.

‘I’ll deal with it.’

Red thanked him and began to walk away but Dembe called out to him.

‘You did the right thing last year. After Diane Fowler.’

‘How can you say that after what’s happened?’

It was a genuine question rather than a rebuke.

'You thought she was dead. It was only the words of a desperate woman that made you think otherwise. You could not have known Berlin would target her.’

‘That doesn’t make the present situation any better.’

‘No. But you will find her, Raymond. Some of Berlin’s men will know where she is. It will just be a matter of finding out which ones.’

‘Yes. But by the time we find her, how much of her will be left?’


	22. Monarch Douglas Bank (No. 112)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mention of Carla's fake death

Dembe called him late that evening to tell him he and Carla had arrived safely.

‘Alright, thanks.’

Red was about to hang up when Dembe stopped him.

‘What happened at Coney Island, Raymond?’

‘What do you mean what happened? You were there the whole time.’

‘Yes. I was there when you got a call from Elizabeth and you moved out of earshot. I knew it worried you. Then five minutes before the exchange you warned me we might not be able to hold up our end of the deal.

You should tell me the rest.’

Red paused for a moment.

‘She had ethical concerns about me making a deal with Berlin and thought she’d stop it. She said that she had found Kaja and that she had frozen the account.’

‘You went ahead on the deal anyway.’

‘I told her I would. I was confident she would unfreeze the account if she knew my life was at stake. Which she did.’

Dembe was struck by a potent feeling of resignation. Hadn’t they done all this before? With Red kneeling in front of Liz in a park teeming with FBI agents as he watched helplessly from the car. 

‘Confident is not the same as certain. You still don’t really know if you can count on her to keep you alive but you persist in putting your life in her hands regardless. One of these days she might actually let you die.’

‘She won’t. Though she’d never admit it, she does care for me. She seemed genuinely upset to hear I’d go through with the deal regardless. But even if she didn’t care about me, she’d keep me alive as long as I was useful to the FBI. When I tried to thank her for letting the deal go ahead she said she was just doing her job. Protecting the CI she was sworn to protect.’

While Red made an effort to keep his voice cheerful and upbeat Dembe could tell that his friend was disheartened, and Dembe felt an uncharacteristic flash of anger at Liz on Red's behalf. He understood that she was still dealing with the fallout from Sam's death, but there was no need to make such a point of speaking to Red as if his life had no inherent value.

However, Dembe didn't attempt to voice his indignation. He knew that Red wouldn't tolerate criticism against her no matter what she did.

‘How did Elizabeth know that Berlin had money at Monarch Douglas?’

Red sighed.

‘She wouldn’t let me kill Tom. Said she would do it herself, though I knew she wouldn’t. My guess is that she’s saved his life only to hide him away somewhere and drill him for information.’

Red’s words were flippant, but they had an undercurrent of concern. It was a dark path she was going down Dembe could tell that it worried him.

‘Will you confront her about it?’

‘No. I’ll wait and hope that she will come to me for help. I can’t force it on her.’

‘Alright. Raymond… There’s one other thing. Did you know that Carla married again?’

‘Yes.’

It had been in the file the taskforce compiled about her when she was just a potential target of Lord Baltimore’s. It hadn’t really registered at the time. He’d been too caught up in his recognition of her face, for all that it was more than twenty years older than he thought it would ever get. That, and knowing she was in immediate peril.

‘How will you handle it?’

Once he’d finally spared a thought about her marital status he’d briefly entertained the idea of outing Naomi Hyland as one Carla Reddington, still married to Raymond Reddington. He could get her second marriage annulled. But it was best to just let her live her life, separate and untainted from his own.

‘By supressing any notion that I’ve thought she was dead all these years, to begin with. The whole world has been told that I abandoned my wife and daughter, I suppose I ought to go along with it.

But, no.

I think I can do a good job of implying an amicable separation without going into details. How do you like the line “after all these years I’ve come to look on her as an estranged sister”? That way I can give this interloper my blessing while emphasising that it's necessary for his continued relationship with her.’

Dembe thought of telling his friend that he didn’t actually have any right to weigh in on her current relationship, but he decided to leave it be. Red’s anticipatory glee at the idea of tying this other man into knots was relatively harmless.

‘Do you want to speak with Carla?’

‘No.’

He’d reached out to touch her but his hand had just hovered by his side. He felt … apprehensive. It was only now that Berlin wasn’t a threat to her that he could really process the idea that she was alive after all this time. He wasn’t prepared to interact with her.

That said, he’d need to act quickly. Agent Keen would have questions for her and he needed to ensure that they went unanswered.

‘Tell her I’ll pay her a visit soon.’


	23. Dr James Covington (No. 89)

Dembe was driving Red to the house they had deposited Naomi.

‘You did well today, Raymond.’

Red chuckled.

‘Yes, I did, didn’t I?’

It had been one of those days he lived for, when he perfectly executed a plan that was in the works for months. One which required multiple groups of people to dance to a tune they didn’t even know he was playing. He’d played the FBI off against Covington, and BB’s heart transplant had fallen through as a result, leaving the Indonesian Ports open for the taking. Closing the deal for the Indonesian ports had shored up support within his syndicate. Meanwhile he’d given Niko enough rope to hang himself with and he had dutifully obliged.

‘Did you see the look on Niko’s face when he finally realised that I was the one playing him? It wasn’t even surprised, more resigned and “oh, I should have known better.” And he should have. But Niko always was a man with an overblown idea of his own importance and too little confidence in those more intelligent than himself.

He had it coming ever since he told me my people were whispering about abandoning me in the face of Berlin’s vendetta. In my experience, the people most vocal about it are the most likely to do it themselves.’

There were undoubtedly others and they’d remember what happened to Niko. It wasn’t only that he’d killed him, but the manner in which he played him. They’d remember that the one time Niko acted against him he’d actually been doing exactly what Red expected of him. Now they’d all start to second guess their actions, wonder if they were truly their own or if they were somehow being manipulated by him without knowing it.

There was also the carrot along with the stick. As he announced the deal for the Indonesian port he’d noticed the way Laskin and Russo’s fear mingled with greed and grudging admiration as they reminded themselves that they followed him because he made them filthy rich. Not just because they were scared of what he’d do to them if they tried to do otherwise.

And then there was the boost to his own wealth… yes, it had been a very good day indeed.

He would have gloated a little more about his success but he realised that Dembe’s shoulders had slumped slightly and from what he could tell in the rear-view mirror he was glowering at the road. Red ran through the events of the day until he found something that could explain his friend’s ill humour. Vargas had held a gun at him and he’d walked towards it with an air of detached curiosity. That would be it. Dembe had known that Vargas had no intention of actually shooting him. However, Red knew that his lack of self preservation was a sore point with Dembe and that he would be especially sensitive about it so soon after he’d gone ahead with the exchange at Coney Island.

The show Red had put on, appearing to saunter carelessly towards certain death had been intended to leave an impression on his audience even after they knew that it was all a farce. He wanted them to talk in hushed whispers about how they’d believed for a moment that their boss didn’t fear death. As it got repeated the lines between fiction and reality would blur and they would come to know it for a fact.

Red realised that he should have known it would have an impact on Dembe as well.

There wasn’t much he could do about it. He would continue to endanger himself when he deemed it worthwhile, and Dembe would continue to worry. But for now…

‘I want to play I-spy. Can we play I-spy?’

‘No, Raymond.’

Red wasn’t discouraged. He could tell from Dembe’s voice that he’d made him smile, like his more childish antics usually did.

‘Aww, why not?’

‘There are only two ways this ends. I either guess it so quickly it annoys you, or I am the one who is annoyed when you pick something so obscure that no one ever could guess.’

‘ _Please_?’

He turned the word into a high-pitched whine. Oh, the things he did for love.

‘Alright.’

‘Yes! I spy with my little eye something beginning with … T. Oh, and a B.’

‘Two words.’

‘Yeah. Ah, you’ll never guess this one.’


	24. Dr Linus Creel (No. 82)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jennifer as Red's daughter, and a reference to daddygate

Red was nursing his glass of scotch, with the bottle within easy reach. When he assumed the position he had intended to get mind-numbingly drunk, careless of anything outside himself. But he couldn’t shake the sensation of Dembe’s gaze, its patient curiosity. Even his silence was expectant, waiting for him to break it. In the face of that the only possible response was compliance.

‘I promised Carla I wouldn’t look for Jennifer.’ Red turned to Dembe and saw that he was waiting for him to continue. ‘That’s how I convinced her not to tell Elizabeth about her past, about Katarina. Me.’

The corner of Red’s mouth twitched in a bitter half smile.

‘I knew you were wondering.’

‘I was not going to ask.’

‘You did a spectacular job of asking without actually doing it.’

His words were sharp and belligerent but Dembe paid him no mind.

‘You gave up your claim to one daughter in order to withhold information from the other.’

Red scowled.

‘Don’t imply that I don’t care for Jennifer. For over twenty years I never stopped mourning the fact that my little girl never got the chance to grow up. Wondering what sort of woman she might have become if she had the chance. Now I know she is alive do not doubt that there is a desperate, howling part of me that would do anything to find her and never let her go. Carla denies knowing where she is but I sincerely doubt she has no way of contacting her. I’d start there. Threaten her. Hurt her if I had to. But after I found her, what then? She’s so scared of me her own mother doesn’t know where she is. She clearly doesn’t want or need me in her life and I would only taint it. Put her in unnecessary danger.

That is why I must stay away. The deal with Carla, her secrecy, is only what I asked for in return.’

‘I understand.’

Dembe watched the anger and defensiveness drain out of Red, leaving him small and empty. That wouldn’t do. Not if he could do something about it.

‘How old would she be now?’

‘Thirty-four.’

‘What do you think she does? How she lives?’

It might have been a gamble, inviting Red to dwell on it but Dembe knew otherwise.

‘Maybe she continued with her ballet. She was certainly good at it as a child, but I never really pegged it as a lifelong passion for her.’

While it was bittersweet, there remained a sweetness for Red in knowing that anything he could dream up was a real possibility. The difference between “might have been” and “might be.”

‘I hope she isn’t in law enforcement,’ he said before breaking off with a scoff, ‘and not just because I wouldn’t want to meet her in her professional capacity. No, I’d much rather she did something incredibly boring. A waitress, or nurse. Maybe I’m giving her too little credit. She could be a doctor or a lawyer, but then I suppose every father says that about his daughter.

I’ll imagine that she owns a boring house in the suburbs with a white picket fence. That she’s married to a normal, boring man who is devoted to her and lacks the imagination required to do anything that would disappoint her. Maybe she’s told him that he technically has a notorious criminal for a father in law, maybe she hasn’t.

Maybe there’s a child…’

Red’s fragile contentment shattered. He could be a grandfather without even knowing it. There could be a child with his blood in the world, one he would never be able to hold or shower with gifts and affection as they grew. A grandchild he would never have the right to claim as his family. The prospect left him reeling in despair and helpless longing.

All he could think was _God help me if Elizabeth ever has children._

Dembe saw his mood change and knew what caused it. He conceded defeat and left Red to his scotch.


	25. The Front (No. 74)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jennifer as Red's daughter

‘Lizzy thinks it was Jennifer we were looking for. She confronted me about it, told me I had no right to reacquaint myself with her. She was jealous. Possessive of me.’

She’d told him he had no right to seek Jennifer out. That she wouldn’t let him turn her life upside down. She didn’t know it, but she’d been preaching to the choir. Red found a dark humour in that, and a lingering grief and longing. But he couldn’t dwell on that.

‘How did Elizabeth know you were looking for the girl in the first place?’ Dembe asked.

‘After I fired Glen I got Aram to try and track her for me.’

‘Aram is incapable of discretion. You know this.’

Red wagged his head from side to side and shrugged.

‘Yes. The boy veritably oozes sincerity. I doubt he’s managed to keep a secret in his life. Your point?’

‘You must have expected that Elizabeth would find out about it.’

There was something playful in Dembe’s words and Red played along, assuming an attitude of mock indignation.

‘Are you implying that it was all an elaborate test to see if I could make her jealous?’

'Yes.'

‘Ah. Well, I gave Aram the photo because I genuinely thought that he might succeed where Glen apparently couldn’t. I did also anticipate that Aram might let slip that I was looking for a girl. Since they all think I’ll go after my own daughter I did know there might be a bit of a misunderstanding.

But Lizzie’s response? That I didn't expect.’

Red’s demeanour was as grandiose as usual but Dembe sensed that there was something uncharacteristically tentative about him all the same.

‘When she said that she’d only allowed the deal at Coney Island to go ahead because it was her job, I knew she was lying to me and to herself. Her reaction today reinforces that however subconsciously, she knows we have some sort of personal connection and that she wants to keep it.

Truthfully though, her possessiveness just means she doesn’t want competition for my attention. There’s nothing there to suggest that she’ll stop denying I’m anything more to her than her CI whenever that’s in doubt.’

Dembe understood that this was why Red left the hospital before Liz woke up. As soon as Red saw her in that hospital bed the subtle tension he’d carried around since Aram’s call drained away as he reassured himself that she was safe. Alive. Dembe had watched him linger at her bedside simply taking comfort in the sound of her breathing and the weight of her hand in his. He’d known that Red would have happily stayed there for hours. Days. As long as it took for her to wake up. But if he thought her first words after waking up might be something along the lines of “What are _you_ doing here?” then it was understandable he didn’t wait for her to kick him out.

So Red had lingered at her bedside, trusting that Dembe would pull him away when the other people affected by the plague started waking up. When Dembe told him it was time Red had taken back the i-pod and returned it to him. Then he left without a backward glance.

Now Dembe took the i-pod out of his pocket.

‘Are you sure you don’t want to keep this?’

He didn’t honestly think he would. He just wanted to provoke Red’s typical response when faced with technology he didn’t understand.

‘My word, yes. What’s it even called, anyway? i-pad, you-pad…’

Dembe supressed a smile.

‘No, Raymond. It’s an i-pod. It is useful. You can carry the music around in your pocket.’

‘Yeah, I can see that. And how does the music get there in the first place? An online account and credit card payments, yes?’

‘You could buy CDs with cash and then transfer the music onto the i-pod’

‘But how do you get the music from one to the other? No, don’t tell me, I’d much rather not know. I’ll stick to my record player, thank-you very much.’

His response was exactly what Dembe expected, that weird mix of befuddlement and snobbery and Dembe laughed at him until his lips hurt. Red simply stood there, smiling at him. He wasn’t entirely sure why Dembe was laughing at him but he was glad to have caused it. And all without trying, too.


	26. The Mombasa Cartel (No. 114)

‘Are you going to tell me that you didn’t “entirely” kill Jeff Pearl for me as well?’

Red knew he could. He could say that he killed him for the for the general nastiness inherent in trafficking, for the animals slaughtered and the people killed. He could claim that he killed him for himself, for all those millions of dollars he invested in what he had believed to be a noble cause. For his betrayal. But he had told Jeff Dembe’s story because he wanted him to know exactly why he was going to die. In that moment he hadn’t cared about the money, or the deaths of people and animals alike. He had only cared about Dembe. What had been done to him as a child.

Red had been brokering a sale of guns for VanHoussen in that squalid brothel basement, and he smelt Dembe before he saw him. Vomit, piss and infection. As soon as the price and terms of the exchange were set Red went to investigate. When he found the boy chained to that standpipe he knelt in front of him, reached out to check his pulse, his temperature but he flinched away from him, feebly. When the brothel owner saw that Red was interested in his slave he offered to sell him to Red at a discount, admitting that when he was healthy he was too old, strong and angry to be of use. Unless he liked that sort of thing. The boy picked up on the exchange and pressed himself back against the wall behind him. Upon seeing his terror Red felt a burning, reckless anger and he harnessed it. Let it fuel him.

He stood and pulled out his gun, told the brothel owner and his cronies with exaggerated calmness that he wasn’t buying him but he wouldn’t leave without him either. Red was outmanned and outgunned but everyone in the criminal world knew of how he’d singlehandedly obliterated the Tatican Brothers the year before. The brothel owner and his cronies judged that while they would be able to kill him eventually, he would surely kill quite a few of them first.

They were unwilling to die over a slave.

Dembe might have moved on from it, but Red could still remember when Dembe woke every other night screaming. When he couldn’t bear to let anyone touch him and responded to even the smallest sign of kindness with mistrust. Red had been all but lost in bitterness and anger himself and felt utterly unequipped to show this child that there was more to the world – to people – than violence and hatred. He had vowed to repay all those responsible for the cruelties visited upon the boy. And for the fact that _he_ of all people was the child’s best hope of growing into a functional adult.

He upheld that vow when he killed Jeff and he wouldn’t deny it now.

‘No. I killed him for you.’

As he said it he met Dembe’s eyes for a moment before averting his gaze, much as he had immediately after killing Jeff. His body language wasn’t contrite, exactly, but it suggested very strongly that he understood he had done something that Dembe might hold against him and that he cared how he would respond. Dembe marvelled for a moment that this man – who claimed to be incapable of believing in a power greater than himself – cared so deeply about what he thought of him.

But it hadn’t mattered that he didn’t want Jeff Pearl dead. If Red really was doing it for him it should have been his call to make. But Red had killed him regardless and in a roundabout way he had done it for himself.

Dembe had seen it countless times when Red had gone on rampages of vengeance over the deaths of fallen associates and allies, something that none of them had expected of him. He did it because he saw any crime against one of his people as a personal affront, which, when it came down to it, meant that he saw his people as extensions of himself. Dembe had more experience than most at being treated like a possession. As if his interests and opinions about his own life were irrelevant. But if Red had come to own him after all it was because Dembe had chosen to serve him, after College and his stint in Sudan and he had known what he was getting into. 

‘I understand,’ Dembe said.

Red reached out to Dembe, needing the physical reassurance of Dembe's hand in his, and Dembe was happy to oblige. As he watched the tension drain out of Red at his touch Dembe knew that although it wasn’t as obvious or as measurable, his claim on Red was just as strong as the one Red had on hm.


	27. The Scimitar (No. 22)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of brief references to a past relationship that Red probably didn't have with Katarina

Red and Dembe were driving from Hassan’s mansion to collect Zoe before meeting with her father.

‘Samar impressed me today. She burned a Mossad asset to save Elizabeth. She’ll be sanctioned for that.’

‘You’re impressed by her just looking at her.’

That startled a laugh out of Red. They shared glance in the rear view mirror, and Dembe’s look was playful and knowing. It was true; Red found her very… impressive. He was very nearly jealous of Kian Nouri. Having Samar Navabi seduce you into a hotel room would almost make the fatal 12 story drop worth it. She was elegant and poised and carried herself with an air of sultry pride. She knew she was attractive, that _he_ found her attractive and she gave as good as she got.

‘Ah, Dembe, I’ve been impressed by her ever since she extracted me from that hotel. Do you know, I regained consciousness tied to a chair with her bent over a table not far from me. Once she was done with her laptop she sauntered over to me, came close enough that I could have touched her if I hadn't been restrained. She stood over me, flirted with me. She was mesmerising even then. Especially then.’

Dembe rolled his eyes. He'd been terrified to find that Red had been taken from him and all the while he'd had been flirting with his captor.

‘First Katarina and now Samar. It’s beginning to look like a pattern.’

Red chuckled.

‘You have no idea.’

Laurence Dechambou had certainly given him an education. Bondage and spanking were fun, though erotic asphyxiation definitely wasn’t. To this day he wasn’t entirely sure that she hadn’t actually been trying to kill him with her stocking. He hadn’t waited long enough to find out. It was as if a switch flipped and he’d fought back; he’d been well on his way to killing her before the adrenalin wore off and he remembered that it was all meant to be a game.

All in all, his time with Laurence had ended even less well even than his affair with Madeline, and his relationship with Katarina ended worse than either of them. He was certainly attracted to a certain type of woman but he had to admit that he had a very poor track record with them. Which was fine for casual encounters but he worked with Samar. A more physical relationship with her would be pleasurable but it was her professional skill and determination that he needed.

She’d genuinely impressed him when she extracted him earlier in the year. Anyone who could catch him with his pants down had his immediate respect and it had been serendipitous that Meera’s place on the taskforce was available. Meera had been a used as a proxy by the Cabal, and with Samar he’d taken the chance to fill her position with someone he already knew and trusted. After all, he’d been keeping track of her for as long as she’d been hunting him.

He certainly didn’t regret getting her onto the taskforce. But there was one thing that frustrated him.

‘Did you hear what Samar said earlier? Lizzie was missing for _two hours_ before anyone thought to ask me for help.’

‘I also heard her imply that you should prepare yourself for the worst.’

Red laughed, and Dembe thought it sounded just a little hysterical.

‘My God, don’t remind me. Sitting there, trying to get her to give me something I could work with it took immense effort to keep myself from blaming her for all of it. Two damn hours. It was the same two weeks ago with that bloody medieval plague. It took over an hour for Aram to tell me she’d been infected.’

‘They didn’t know the Scimitar had her at first.’

‘No. But if I’d known about the initial crash I would have immediately suspected that it was a setup, given who we were dealing with. And even if it was just a car crash I would still have wanted to know about it. They thought she was hospitalised. She could still have been seriously injured. She could still have been…’

He broke off, swallowed visibly before going on.

‘It's not even their fault, really. Each time either Aram or Samar comes to me for assistance they’re all shifty as if they aren’t part of a team that was set up _specifically_ to work for me. I swear I’m gonna make it abundantly clear to Harold that I don’t care if he thinks they can manage it on their own. I want to know about it the second they even suspect something’s happened to her.’

‘Doing so would make it clear to them that you care about Elizabeth. Don’t pretend you weren’t also careful not to react to Samar’s news in case it seemed that you were overly concerned about her welfare.’

Red knew that Dembe was right. But thinking about it, he had to concede that it was likely that ship sailed long ago. Even as Samar told him Liz had been taken she’d watched him carefully, as if she was expecting him to show some sign of distress. As for the others, they’d been there when Anslo held a gun to Liz’s head and he traded his life for hers. No one who witnessed his desperation in that moment would doubt that he cared for her.

‘It’s about time I dropped that little pretence. And if it means that I know as soon as something happens to her it’ll be well worth it.’


	28. The Decembrist (No. 12)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jennifer as Red's daughter

Dembe sat in the chair Tom had just vacated and they ordered their meals from the owner himself. He was a dear man who Red extricated from a sticky situation five years prior. He’d been a gracious host and an invaluable asset ever since.

‘You were wrong to tell Tom never to see Elizabeth again. If she ever decided to take him back that would be her call to make. Or this is about hiding from her that you hired Tom in the first place.’

Red glowered at him. The only reason he hadn’t killed Tom outright was out of respect of Liz’s love for him. Tom hurt her, messed with her sanity and innocence. As far as he was concerned Tom was responsible for the boat and the state she was in. That she needed reassurance from him of all people that she wasn’t bad or broken. On top of that Elizabeth would bear the guilty conscience for the man Tom killed, and she was the one who risked going to jail if it ever came to light.

‘This isn’t about that. And yes, it should be her call to make and I would have no problem with that if I thought she could make an informed decision. But the man she loves is a fiction. A lie so good that even he can’t draw the line between it and who he really is.’

‘There must have been some truth to it. He would not have been so successful otherwise.’

‘No doubt.’

That was the beguiling thing about false identities. You pick a name to call yourself by, something harmless and trustworthy. Although the name is false you imbue the lie with some or your real personality traits, say, your charm and sense of humour. As you interact with her you see yourself through her eyes. She shows you the man you wish you were, with all your best characteristics and none of your worst. Maybe you’re tempted to try and take that idealised version of yourself and somehow make it real. But if you think that’s possible you aren’t only lying to her but to yourself as well.

Red would miss being Kenneth Rathers and his conversations with Zoe. But it was for the best.

Their dinner was brought out and there was a lull in the conversation as they started eating.

‘I was right, not to search for Jennifer.’

Dembe was confused for a moment, but he had experience keeping up with Red’s non sequiturs. He also knew how he thought. Show him someone else’s personal tragedy and he’ll find some way to turn it into a mirror.

‘This is about Zoe, and Berlin.’

‘Yes. He was so desperate to see her, and she was so terrified of him. I never want to put Jennifer in that position.’

Zoe’s fear of her father made her skittish and flinching. Made her run from him. Jennifer had run as well and Red couldn’t bear the thought of her reacting to him as Zoe had to her own father. In the end, it was better for both of them if he stayed away. Maybe Jennifer did live in the suburbs, in an ordinary house with an ordinary job and a devoted husband. Maybe there was a child.

He would have to be satisfied with maybe.

Dembe let him dwell on it for a while, as he in turn reflected on how easily Red had identified with his adversary. There was the fact that they both had daughters around the same age who wanted nothing to do with them, but Dembe suspected it wasn’t only that. They’d both been involved in the Cold War and it didn’t seem to matter that they’d been on different sides. There was comradery in that shared bottle of vodka and the almost fond, indulgent way Red listened to Berlin as he talked with such nationalistic pride and nostalgia before killing him. And Red hadn’t needed to involve Berlin in his search to find the man who’d set them against each other. Dembe got the sense that Red had done it simply because he wanted to know what it would be like to have the other man work alongside him rather than against him. Ultimately though, it had served no real purpose and lead to Alan Fitch’s death; another man who'd been both adversary and ally to Red.

After their main course was taken away and they ordered their coffees and desserts Red pulled himself together and brought the conversation around to business.

‘Here’s what I plan to do now that Alan’s dead…’

And they planned for a very different conflict with the Cabal. They started with the assumption that the Cabal would send someone to the Factory to get information on the Fulcrum and that they would have to stop him from succeeding. Dembe took issue with the idea that Red would have to go in alone, but Red reassured him that he essentially had a team in place already. Dembe reluctantly agreed.


	29. Luther Braxton (No. 21)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daddygate. If it was just the vague implications of Red wanting a familial relationship with her, or even the ambiguous reference to a past role he had in her life I might not have bothered. But in this chapter I also referred to Liz shooting him when she was a child and that's a straight up anachronism.

Red drank steadily for hours. He was dwelling on how he’d reached out to touch her, support her and how she responded to him. That one word – _don’t_ – rang in his ears with all the anger and distrust that her voice and his imagination were capable of. He’d flinched away from her as if she struck him and inside he was still flinching, curled up around the wound she’d left behind. It hurt all the more when compared to the mutual joy that had been apparent when Dr Orchard was reunited with her son. Red wanted that. Even if it was just once, he wanted that simple affection and trust with Liz. That kinship. But he knew it was impossible, and unforgivably selfish besides.

There was something else, too. Something tinged in shame and self disgust that he’d been trying to forget when he sat down to drink, though he no longer remembered what it was. He drained his fine, crystal tumbler and refilled it with a bitter half smile. It must have worked.

At long last Dembe decided that he’d had enough. He came to stand in front of Red’s chair, forcing Red to crane his neck up to look at him.

‘It will be alright.’

That particular phrase was a favourite of Dembe’s for situations like this. It prompted one of two responses, each useful in their own way. In the first case, Red would allow himself to be reassured. In the second, Red would abhor it as a platitude and respond with anger. This was far more preferable to Dembe than the drunken stupor he seemed determined to achieve.

This time Red launched from his seat so that they were essentially standing toe to toe.

‘Don’t say that to me. And certainly not now.’

Right then, Dembe thought, anger it is.

‘She doesn’t think I care about her. Her of all people.’ Red flung his arm out to his side, gesturing with it as he spoke. ‘When I made it clear to Harold that I wanted to know about it the moment something happens to her, he raised his eyebrows. That’s it. He didn’t argue and he certainly didn’t seem surprised.’

His arm dropped back to his side.

He’d told her of the monstrous fish. Hadn’t she understood that she was everything to him? His way out of the darkness, his only hope for something even approaching redemption. It was as close as he could ever get to telling her how much he loved her, and why couldn’t she see that?

‘Raymond, all she knows about you for certain is that you are a notorious criminal who waltzed into her life one day. Ever since then she’s been waiting for some explanation.’

Red scrunched his face in confusion. Did he say some of that aloud?

‘Did I say anything about fish just then?’

He didn’t know how to explain to Dembe that he wasn’t enough without diminishing all that he meant to him. Dembe took him as he was and showed him every day that there was still light in the world, and in him.

But Red needed to be better than he was and he couldn’t do it without her.

‘Raymond.’

Right. Dembe was trying to tell him something. He swallowed visibly and leaned forward, making a show of listening attentively.

‘She thinks she’s found her explanation. She knows you want the fulcrum. That you need her to do it. She woke up to you attempting to finish what Luther Braxton started.’

‘Don’t compare me to him. He likely tortured her before he realised that he couldn’t get her information by force. I would _never_ hurt her.’

‘Even so.’

Red bared his teeth at him, but he just didn’t have the energy required to sustain his anger. The scotch was probably to blame for that. He slumped back into his chair and looked blearily at the bottle. He found he no longer had a taste for it.

‘Be patient. You will regain her trust.’

Red almost threw his assurances back in his face. Again. His friend had many hidden talents, but he was no prophet. Instead he nodded, and closed his eyes. Took those words and turned turned them into a vow. She would trust him again. She had to.

Dembe stood over him. Watched as Red’s emotional state moved from despair, through determination to exhaustion. Red was physically and emotionally wrung out and no wonder, after the Factory, the missiles, the desperate search for Liz and her rejection of him. And he hadn’t slept since before it all started.

He, for one, was heading off to bed, and he rested his hand on Red’s shoulder as he went.

Red felt Dembe’s hand on his shoulder as he passed him and knew he should try to get some sleep as well. He sighed, but just as he was finding some measure of peace he remembered what he’d been trying so desperately to forget.

When she told him that she remembered him. That he’d been there. For one mad moment he’d thought she remembered who he was to her, and he’d been glad. Oh, he had also felt regret and guilt and he’d been scared that if she remembered that, then she remembered everything. How she shot him. But what stuck in his memory was that he’d been glad that circumstances had forced him to let go of the secret that weighed upon him so heavily.

He curled his lip in self disgust and drained what was left in the tumbler.

Then he stood and tossed it at the wall. It arced upwards for a moment before gravity took over. The sound it made on impact was gratifying, and he stared at its shattered remains for a moment before heading off to bed.

Dembe heard the crash, and then Red’s footsteps as he walked down the hall past his room. He sighed and rolled over in bed. He would clean up the mess in the morning.


	30. Ruslan Denisov (No. 67)

‘Well. If I thought I’d score any points with Lizzy this week I’d be sorely disappointed. I stopped the mass poising and murder of countless people in this country and all she cares about is that I profited in the process.’

Dembe saw that he really didn’t seem to care about her moral judgement. He was still riding high on the way he’d successfully juggled so many moving parts; he’d played the FBI against Denisov, and the two of them against Anneca Oil. He’d replaced Anneca with Savillion and done all of this in the face of the CIA’s and Commander Kushan’s efforts to make themselves a nuisance. Dembe knew that the thrill he got out of such a ploy was its own reward, not to mention the very tangible reward his new partnership with Savillion would bring.

On top of all that he would go home as the hero for once.

‘Some might say that your intentions matter. If your goal was selfish, it doesn't matter how much good you did in pursuit of it.’

Red chuckled.

‘Not you, too.’

Dembe only shrugged. They both knew Dembe’s statement wasn’t really an admonishment. He just wanted to see how he would respond.

‘You know, I’ve never really understood why it’s so conventional to put more weight on people’s intentions over the results of their actions.

One of the worst things I have ever done in my life was hire Tom to watch over Elizabeth. My intentions were good. All I wanted to do was look out for her safety and wellbeing. Instead he infiltrated her life in the most intimate manner possible, betrayed her trust and scarred her in a way that she will have to deal with for the rest of her life.

I am ultimately responsible for that. Because my good intentions backfired.’

Red broke off. If she ever found out, her current anger at him over the fulcrum would seem like nothing. He’d just have to hope that she continued to set so much store on good intentions because that was all he had to defend himself with.

He swallowed, then picked up where he left off.

‘On the other hand, there are thousands of people who will live through the coming months, years who would have died if I hadn’t done what I did today. Do you really think they, or their friends and family would care if they discovered that an international criminal profited out of their rescue?’

He laughed.

‘I think they’d thank me.’

Dembe realised there was something exaggerated in his laugh and his arrogance.

‘Elizabeth really has gotten to you. Not her moral judgement, but all the rest.’

Red scowled at him for a moment, for the reminder and the way Dembe called him out on it.

‘Yes. The way she thinks I’ve been pretending to care about her so that what, she would hand the fulcrum over of her own free will? If I didn’t care for her I would have simply done to her what I did to Zoe, introduce myself as Kenneth Rathers or somesuch, ingratiate myself into her good graces and get what I wanted that way. Maybe I wouldn’t even wait for her to give it to me, I’d just turn her dingy little hotel room upside down trying to find it.’

He gave Dembe a bitter smile.

‘If I didn’t care for her, the way she doubts it, her cold shoulder and snide remarks wouldn’t be this wearying.’

There had been that one moment while they watched the Milonga when he’d thought that he was reclaiming some sort of closeness with her, though in hindsight he knew that he’d risked overshooting the mark.

‘Donald asked if I was in the dog house with Elizabeth mad at me. As if there was something romantic between us.’

‘Are you surprised?’

Red wasn’t. While he’d been expounding to Liz on the nature of negotiation and seduction, violence and sex he’d become aware of the fact that his voice had dropped into the register he might have used to talk about the subject in any other context.

‘Maybe it’s because I wasn’t there when Lizzy grew up, so I swing between talking to her as if she’s a child and as if she were any other woman.’

Dembe thought of _I’ll show you mine if you show me yours_ and all the other innuendoes Red used when talking to prospective business partners or clients. He thought of the way Red sometimes talked to him of women and sex, never making any real attempt to hide just how aroused he was.

‘Or any man,’ said Dembe.

Red conceded the point. If it wasn’t to get them into bed it was to unsettle them in a business transaction, or simply because sex was something he was frequently preoccupied with and he’d never really understood why he should pretend otherwise.

‘I know it’s wildly inappropriate with Elizabeth, and it’s probably not helped by the fact that I really do gravitate towards her. I’m incredibly aware of her proximity whenever we’re in the same room and I lap up any attention she gives me, whether it’s good or bad. It’s easy to see how that might be misconstrued.’

Red shrugged, and Dembe still thought he was a little too sanguine about it all. 

‘Don’t you worry about mixed messages?’

When it had occurred to Red to check how Liz received his commentary on the Milonga he’d found that far from being the victim of an awkward misunderstanding she’d understood all too much. She’d seen him as someone damaged. Someone for whom violence was as natural in sex as tenderness and affection, and nothing was ever unconditional. She’d pitied him for it and also been mildly revolted.

‘No. I’m quite certain I’m not her type.’


	31. The Kenyon Family (No. 71)

Red put the Fulcrum projector into the drawer of his desk and the key along with it. Then he sat on his armchair and the cat sat on his lap soon after. He patted her on the head, and scratched her under the ears.

‘And is Mrs Johnson treating you well?’

Mrs Johnson was the elderly widow who lived in the flat next door. She came by twice a day to feed and look after Qarinah. For all she knew Red really was Bill Kershaw; a former military serviceman and current international businessman, with houses and apartments across the globe.

Red leaned back in his chair. Well. On the bright side, it seemed he’d got through to Cooper about notifying him when Liz was in danger. From what he gathered he’d heard about it even before she graduated from ‘wandering around aimlessly in hostile territory’ to ‘officially kidnapped.’

But she hadn’t accepted the apartment at the Audrey. He hadn’t really thought she would. He had just … wanted to try. And she really did need to move out of that hotel. Re-establish herself after Tom and her hunt for Berlin. It worried him that she wasn’t making any attempt to find an apartment on her own.

He’d also wanted to see how she would refuse it. He’d been prepared for her to throw it back in his face as just one more example of him pretending to care for her. He actually found a measure of optimism in her insistence that their relationship was just business. He knew she hadn’t meant to but she’d implicitly acknowledged that he did care for her beyond her information on the fulcrum and their professional relationship.

He just wished she would trust him a little more.

He sighed and it sounded strangely loud in the room. Or rather, the room felt strangely quiet.

He broke out in laughter, and Dembe turned to him at the noise.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s Glen! After spending essentially two whole days with the man I keep expecting him to duck out from behind a corner with some wisecrack in in that grating voice of his.’

Dembe smiled at the thought. He enjoyed watching the two of them interact. The way that Glen wound Red up for the sheer joy of it and he always, always fell for it.

‘How did he talk you into letting him come with us?’

Red gave a rueful shrug.

‘He told me he’d never been out of the country before. That all his holidays as a kid had been driving ones. It appealed to my vanity as a globetrotter and my pity for anyone who isn’t. I just sagged, and then when he told me he’d been born in London and could be wheels up by 9:00 I just knew it was better not to argue.’

There was also that odd moment when Glen looked hopefully at him and said _plus… I feel like we might have a good time_ and Glen briefly gone from an expert he needed and a burr in his side to something that was very nearly a friend.

‘I wondered why we didn’t leave until so late.’

‘Well, there you go. We waited for Glen to finish his day job and then go home so he could pack and feed his turtle. He lives with his mother so I don’t know why she couldn’t have fed his turtle, but that’s beside the point.’

He paused for a moment and when he spoke next, the tone and cadence of his voice slipped into the one he used to tell stories.

‘Do you know, the old palazzos in Florence have benches that line the outside walls. People would go to the prestigious families for favours and they would wait on those benches; there are indents rubbed smooth in the stone from where countless buttocks sat as their owners waited for the attention of those more powerful than themselves.

The reason the benches were outside was to show off to all the other powerful families. Their influence and prestige could be measured by the importance of the people waiting for them, how many there were and the length of time they waited for.

That is the sort of power I give to Glen every time I go to him for help. And my God, he knows it too. We waited for him for an hour in that cesspit today. One whole hour! _And_ someone sneezed on me.’

Dembe laughed at Red’s indignation and disgust.

‘I’m glad to see that my suffering amuses you.’

Dembe only laughed harder.


	32. The Deer Hunter (No. 93)

‘I’ve always thought I would die in a blaze of glory,’

Red paused, as he considered that “blaze of glory” deaths are traditionally reserved for the heroes.

‘Or well, at least in a death that was violent and gory. A few bullet wounds in a shootout, a stab in the back, or even a nice beheading. Maybe a poisoning. Now that would be interesting. But with the way Lizzy’s behaving she’s going to drive me to an early grave through stress induced high blood pressure and a resulting heart attack.’

‘If your heart worries you, you should be more careful with what you eat and drink’

Red glared at him, but Dembe was decidedly uncowed.

‘You’re missing the point. She ran after a killer without backup. She was captured. She could have died and you heard her! When I confronted her about it she was nonchalant and sullen, as if it didn’t matter. She’s become reckless. Taking unnecessary risks, endangering her own life and she doesn’t seem to care.

Why are you just staring at me like that? I would have thought you’d be a little more sympathetic.’

‘Now you know how I feel.’

‘Ah.’

He wasn’t that bad. Dembe was his back up. And the risks he took were necessary.

Dembe hadn’t liked it but Luther Braxton and The Factory had been necessary. The missiles had been unexpected, but he couldn’t really have prevented them even if they had been. And if, when he got back to shore he’d been far less concerned about his own brush with death than he was with Liz’s safety, surely that wasn’t a surprise.

On the other hand, Dembe didn’t know about the boiler room. How he and Liz had over pressurised it manually or the fact that he’d very nearly died in the process. How he’d been thrown across the room, lost consciousness and came to with bruised sternum and upper ribs among his other injuries; evidence that someone had seen the need to perform chest compressions on him. He wasn’t about to tell him either.

And anything he did say to defend himself would be somewhat undermined by the way he’d started this whole conversation talking glibly about his own death and demise.

Best to just change the subject.

‘She isn’t going to give me the Fulcrum.’

‘Because she's scared you'll leave her?’

‘Yes.’

‘That's a bad reason.’

Red was actually pretty happy about it. She still didn’t trust that he actually cared about her, but she still wanted him in her life. On balance, he reckoned that was something to be happy about.

‘Why?’

‘She knows your life depends on possessing it, doesn’t she?’

‘Yes.’

‘You won't be able to stay in her life if you're dead.’

‘Ah.’

‘Raymond, you still have time but it will run out fast. Soon you will have to insist.’

‘Yes…’

Red was somewhat reluctant about the idea. For the first time since he forced himself into her life and turned it upside down Elizabeth thought she had some real power over him. He didn’t want to take that away from her. Especially if all she really wanted to make him do was stay in her life, something he would have happily done anyway.

‘ _Raymond_.’

‘Yes, yes, alright.’


	33. T. Earl King VI (No 94)

Dembe sat in one of the armchairs of the Bethesda apartment with Qarinah in his lap, waiting for Red to come out of the shower. When they’d reunited at the Post Office Dembe had known immediately that Red was upset. Normally they wouldn't have returned to the apartment so soon but he’d understood that Red would need to be somewhere he felt safe. Somewhere that was his. Once there Red had exhaled shuddering breaths into the crook of Dembe’s neck while Dembe wrapped his arms around him and tried to forget the sheer terror he felt when he came to and realised that Red had been taken. Again. He’d also noticed that Red was freshly shaven and that the aftershave he wore wasn’t his.

Red returned dressed with uncharacteristic casualness – a pair of faded jeans and a black hoodie – and touched Dembe's shoulder as he passed, choosing the seat next to him. Then he saw Qarinah and reached over to pet her as well and she batted him playfully with her paw. Red had done some thinking about Madeline. He might have suspected that she would get back at him for last year, but what she actually did revealed her to be either far more vindictive than he’d thought her, or far more insensitive. He didn’t care to find out which.

‘Over the eight years I was a slave I was sold seven times.’

It was an oblique way to start a conversation, but Dembe felt the situation called for it. And he’d learnt from the best.

‘Each time they drugged me to get rid of the dead look in my eyes and fill me with artificial vigour. It was common for them to present me to potential customers naked, so they knew exactly what they were buying.

The Kings treated you in much the same way. Only they dressed you up.’

‘I’m sure I have no idea what it was like, to be treated so badly for so long. They only primped and pampered me for several hours, treatment I might have paid for under different circumstances.’

‘You were still treated like a commodity.’

Red reflected that although he’d called it lousy, the tux had actually been good quality and the tailor was skilled. It was the way they dressed him in it as if he was a prize stallion being put out to stud that had him in a hurry to reclaim his own clothes. The shower had washed off the aftershave but he hadn’t been able to scrub the sensation of that tux out of his skin.

He wouldn’t have given his worst enemy to the Kings, and Madeline had done it to him as part of a game of tit for tat.

‘What happened?’

Red told him. That Liz had bid on him, trying to get him out safely, only to be discovered herself. That Yaabari bought him, and that once it was clear Liz couldn’t get him out of the glass box he’d told her to leave him, that she’d done all she could. Red told Dembe of the bag that would have carried his head to Johannesburg and of how Liz had returned in the last moment.

‘I told her to never risk her life for mine again. Tried to make her promise.’

Red remembered how Liz had simultaneously understood him so well and so poorly. It was true; he really didn’t have all that much of a high opinion of himself and he did take care to appear invulnerable in pubic. But it didn't follow that he wouldn't accept help from anyone. He relied on Dembe to watch his back as a matter of course and more people had died in his employ than he cared to count. She hadn’t understood that he couldn’t allow her – specifically – to endanger her life for his. And her response: _I risked my life for you because I care for you. Deal with that._ She’d practically flung it at him and he’d seen that he’d hurt her but he wasn’t going to back down, not in this. It was for her own good.

‘You should not have tried to make her do that.’

Red’s eyes went wide with desperation and entreaty. He couldn’t bear the thought of living in a world without her in it. He wouldn’t be able to do it and Dembe knew this,

‘ _Why_ …’

‘It was selfish. Expecting someone who cares for you not to do all they can to save you.’

Red knew he spoke the truth even though he hated to hear it. Besides, wasn’t that pretty much what he said to Dembe, after Anslo stormed the Post Office? He'd told Dembe that if he had died he would never have forgiven himself for not doing all he could to save him.

The conversation lulled for a moment or two.

‘This evening, two different people assumed that I have no one in the world who cares for me.

Admittedly Lizzy was one of them and she thought she was the exception, but it gets tiresome, sometimes, to be thought of as the perennial loner. Being faced by the smugness and pity of people who don't know any better.’

‘You were the one who decided we should downplay our friendship.’

Red sighed.

‘I know.’

It had always wryly amused Red, how their friendship so easily went under the radar. If people noticed that he was openly affectionate with his bodyguard, well, he was openly affectionate with practically everyone. And Dembe's role as his strong, silent shadow meant that they never saw him as the dear friend he truly was. Liz certainly hadn't, but then, she wasn't meant to have. Close relationships _would_ make him vulnerable. If people knew about them. 

‘I love you.’

Red leaned towards Dembe and whispered it to him as if it was a secret, or a prayer, and Dembe smiled fondly in response.

‘And I love you.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this doesn't come across as OOC. I do love how Red behaves in this episode: trying to strike up a conversation with his tailor, pestering the Kings about their family history and bidding on himself. But the slave trade is something that Red clearly had strong feelings about even before he was put up for auction. I don't think that's something he'd just brush off, and it's also a useful explanation for why we haven't seen Madeline since. 
> 
> Also, Qarinah is the Arabic equivalent for a succubus (according to wikipedia). She has sex with people as they sleep and takes the form of a cat or other household pet. I thought it would appeal to Red's sense of humour because it's both pretty dark and kind of lame.


	34. The Major (No. 75)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daddygate.

‘Do you really believe I should tell her?’

They were driving away from the restaurant where they ambushed the Major.

‘Yes,’

‘About everything.’

‘Yes, Raymond.’

‘But how…’

‘You open your mouth and words come out. Preferably ones that are clear and truthful.’

‘Dembe, that is singularly unhelpful.’

Dembe shrugged.

‘Start small. Tell her that you hired Tom.’

‘That’s no small thing to admit to. She would hate me. She wouldn’t understand.’

‘She has hated you before. Now she cares for you enough to risk her life for yours.’

The very thought of it still made Red tremble. But it was true. She’d hated him for Sam’s death, but appeared to have forgiven him for it. Somehow. She had seemed to hate him as recently as five weeks ago when she first assumed that he was using her to get the fulcrum. But she’d gone back for him, saved him from Yaabari.

‘You make her understand by explaining why you hired him. You wanted to keep her safe and you wanted to keep an eye on her. You did it because you are her father.’

Dembe glanced in the rear-view mirror as he said it and the emotions that ran across Red’s face were transparent, contradictory and predictable. A tangled mess of unworthiness and possessiveness, shame and self-righteousness, despair and desperate hope. It was the hope that Dembe had been particularly watching for. Red wanted her to accept him as her father, and some small, deep buried part of him actually thought she might. That was the part he needed to feed.

‘I know you fear she wouldn’t accept you, and that your life would endanger hers if she did. But imagine for a moment what it would be like if she accepted you and the both of you were in a position to deal with the dangers. Together.’

Red shied away from the very thought of it. Liz, working with him. Without any reservations or boundaries between her world and his. Quite apart from the danger bringing her up himself would have put her in, he left her with Sam because he wanted her to have an ordinary life. To grow up good and uncorrupted. Even now Red was painfully conscious of the darkness she already harboured in her soul; the potential for viciousness, anger and hatred. Especially now. If she knew he was her father it would give her a justification for that, an excuse for her darkness and that was the last thing he wanted to be.

‘What have I missed?’

‘I don’t want her to be like me.’

Dembe understood this had less to do with genetics and more to do with how she might be influenced by him.

‘I turned out alright.’

That shocked a laugh out of Red.

‘Well yes, but I’m convinced you grew into the man you are today in spite of me rather than because of me.’

Dembe thought Red gave himself too little credit but there _had_ been other, healthier role models. His tutors, both religious and academic. His instructors in self defence. Therapists and counsellors. All of whom Red had chosen for their goodness and decency as well as their professional acumen. In any case, “role model” wasn’t really the right term for what Red had been. Dembe had seen how much he cared for him. Seen how desperately Red wanted him to become someone noble and decent, and how keenly aware he was of his own lack of nobility and decency. Dembe had decided to learn to live by them so he could teach Red in turn.

Red’s thoughts were running parallel to his.

‘You’re also determined to influence _me_ rather than the other way around.’

Red said this shrewdly; he knew what this conversation was about. The way Dembe was patiently trying to chip away at his reservations, his secrecy.

‘I suppose you’d have me believe that Lizzy has the same mysterious ability to be in my orbit without being corrupted. You seem to have missed that it’s already happened. Dembe, she imprisoned and tortured her husband in a ship for four months. Leaving aside the fact that the man deserved far worse, that isn’t something she should’ve been capable of!’

‘You saw how much it distressed her. She knew that it was wrong. That she was wrong. It is far too early to give up on her. Raymond, imagine what it would be like if she accepted you, fought with you and that she was capable of maintaining her integrity while doing it.’

Red gritted his teeth and shook his head. He knew how these mind games went. It started out as a simple hypothetical and then it would turn into something you dwelled on for hours until you believed it was actually possible. But it was a beguiling thought and Red fell into the trap even though he knew it was there. He remembered how glad he’d been when Liz told him he was there in the fire. When he thought for a moment that she knew who he was to her. Only this time he set aside the shame and self-disgust. He imagined for a moment that his optimism was actually feasible and appropriate rather than foolish and selfish.

‘I’d never be able to tell it to her clearly…’

Red mused aloud, and Dembe rolled his eyes. The whole point was to be clear and open with her.

‘But if I had the perfect moment. An opportunity that allowed me at least the veneer of talking about something else entirely, maybe I could make himself understood. If she asked the right questions maybe I would find a way to answer them…’

On the other hand, Dembe thought, it was good that his friend was allowing himself to be optimistic for a change.

‘In any case,’ Red said as they were pulling up to the Post Office, ‘First we have to keep Agent Keen out of prison.’


	35. Tom Keen (No. 7)

‘Well, Dembe. Are you pleased?’

He wasn’t. He wasn’t particularly pleased with Red’s characteristically oblique attempt at honesty, and he certainly wasn’t pleased that it had left him hurting.

‘That was my perfect moment. Sitting with her, ostensibly warning her of the dangers of setting oneself up as an invisible benefactor. I very nearly told her. About everything. About hiring Tom. How precious she is to me. What I took away from her. It was as close as I will ever get to telling her.’

Red paused, remembered that there was a moment there where he’d thought they both knew all too well what the other was feeling. As he spoke he tapped into wells of shame and guilt and futility that he would normally leave untouched. The whole point of the exercise was to make it personal, but the strength of his own emotions had surprised him and it had been too much, he’d made himself far too vulnerable, and the stricken, anguished way she looked at him reflected his own pain. She’d cried and he was very nearly on the brink of tears himself. He said his piece and stood, striving to maintain some measure of dignity, of distance between himself and her.

He’d still thought that she might understand, that they might still talk about it in the future, but then she’d revealed that she had missed the point entirely.

‘After all that, all she wanted was to thank me for saving Tom to save her. As if I would lift a finger to save _him_.’

The plan was that Tom would serve himself up to the authorities on a silver platter and then rot in jail. He was nothing to the Cabal. Connolly had obviously always intended to step in for the sake of the task force, rendering everything he’d done to keep her out of jail ultimately meaningless. Red could have left Tom in Germany but now he was back in her life and she thanked him for it.

‘There have been plenty of times she’s misjudged me for the worse, but I don’t know how to deal with her thinking I’m better than I am.’

It left him jittery. He didn’t want to disappoint her and he just knew that if Tom were ever in danger again he’d feel compelled to save him. Just so that he could prove himself worthy of her gratitude.

‘She also overestimated your knowledge and power. Assuming it worked out as you planned.’

‘Ha. Yes, admittedly that’s something I like to encourage.

But perhaps I ought to have anticipated it. Connolly has obviously got big plans for Harold. Plans that would quite likely be useless without his role in the task force. The so-called seizure he had today? He’s clearly taking his manipulation of him to the next level.

Really, the idea is ingenious. Convince a man he’s dying, sell this fake clinical trial as his one hope for survival, and then make it clear to him that his involvement in said trial is reliant on doing some small favours for you… All there’d be left to do would be to watch the blackmail material pile up.’

‘I’m still not happy about this Raymond. The man thinks he is dying.’

‘Yes, and imagine how happy he’ll be when he realises he isn’t!’

Dembe was decidedly unimpressed.

‘No? Look, we’ve been through this. If Connolly hasn’t already joined the Cabal, he’ll do it soon and I’ll have a good idea of their plans from what he does. Harold seems to be a big part of that so I need to let it play out.

But quite apart from that, Harold is someone Elizabeth trusts and relies on. He’s scolded her before for making morally unsound decisions and will do so again. He can keep her in line in a way that would be hypocritical of me to try.

But he can only do this if he continues to be morally sound.’

‘You’re testing him. For her sake.’

Red wagged his head from side to side.

‘Well, yes. It would be far better to find out he isn’t so morally upright through a scheme I can observe rather than be completely blindsided later on.’

It was nothing new but it still surprised Dembe sometimes. How incredibly convoluted and yet simple his friend’s morality was. How it allowed for torture, murder and all kinds of manipulation, but in the end it was all justified because it was for Elizabeth’s sake.

‘You should still tell her tell her the truth. Just because it didn’t work this time doesn’t mean that you should stop trying. Be honest with her.’

Dembe said it as if it was easy. It wasn’t. Red couldn’t even imagine putting it into words. But he wasn’t ready to give up on his new optimism just yet. Not entirely. Hobbs had a man who was looking into regenerating brain function, maybe that could help him. Elizabeth apparently had no memory of him whatsoever. The memories of a four year old are easily forgotten but perhaps the memory wipe of the fire was done too well, took her other memories of him along with them. Maybe Hobbs’ man could give them back to her. That way she’d truly remember him and he’d get back that feeling of pleasure and relief he’d felt at the bottom of that empty pool.

Only this time, it would be real.

‘Alright. I’ll try. Once more.’

And if it turned out this research couldn’t help him, there was another reason to expose Hobbs to the FBI. Expose him only to save him. Put him in his debt. He was going to need an ally in the Cabal and Hobbs would be his man.


	36. The Longevity Initiative (No. 97)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daddygate. Not for Red's thoughts when he's holding the photos of her as a child; that ties into S3E14 when he tells her he still isn't sure that he shouldn't have brought her up himself. The Daddygate is in Dembe's flashback when Red tells him specifically that Liz is his daughter. There's also a reference to Jennifer as Red's daughter.

Red sat for a while, just looking at the handful of photos he had of Liz growing up. Birthdays he missed. Childhood friends he never met. When he first received them he dreamed that there would be a time when he celebrated her birthday with her, that he would be the one laughing by her side. He’d saved that bottle of homemade wine in the hope that they might share it together and he’d have just a taste of what Sam had with her every day.

He’d known it was foolish whimsy. Really, he was glad she accepted it from him at all. By giving the homemade wine back to her, reminding her of how she and Sam had made it themselves he set himself up as a custodian of her childhood and remarkably, she hadn’t taken offence. Even after Sam’s death. That would have to be enough.

The dream of her remembering him, accepting him, that dream would join the one soaked in homemade wine and all the others. Locked away in the very depths of his soul only to be taken out once a year. He lost himself in tenderness and longing for a while, and Dembe came to him just as the dissonance between dream and reality was becoming too much to bear.

Dembe rested a hand on Red’s shoulder and he leaned into the touch, with his forehead against Dembe’s arm. He thought for a moment how right it felt, to have him standing above him and supporting him.

Dembe kissed the top of his head, and claimed the seat beside him.

In the early years after Red had taken him he’d been aware that this day was important. That the girl in the photos was important. He’d asked in that first year who she was and Red answered _That is not for you to know_. The next morning Red’s manner had been apologetic, but unwavering. He wouldn’t speak of her.

For the next few years that is how it stood. He thought for a time that they were of Red’s daughter, Jennifer, but there were new, current photos and at the time he had known that Jennifer was dead. There was no mistaking the ritual of Swan Lake for something other than one of mourning and grief. The photos were a different matter; there was melancholy, yes, but also wistfulness and hope.

When Dembe was seventeen he asked again and watched Red’s instinct for secrecy rise up and subside. They had both changed since the first time he asked. Dembe had grown in confidence and Red was already coming to rely on him for a measure of strength and support.

Red told him she was his other daughter. Elizabeth.

Dembe had asked why it was such a secret, why he was so careful not to have any contact with her when it was clear just how much he wanted it. Red had laughed sardonically as if he was being deliberately obtuse and said: _Isn’t it obvious?_ But it wasn’t. Not to Dembe. Red had tried to explain. His life was no place for her. It would make them both vulnerable to enemies who would use her as leverage against him. There were other dangers as well and Dembe listened, but he still didn’t understand.

Dembe knew that his life with Red was unconventional, even dangerous at times, but he wouldn’t have traded it for anything. Now he knew was that there was a girl out there who might have grown up with him if circumstances had been different. Someone who might have seen Red as he did. Someone with whom he might have shared the joys and challenges of loving one Raymond Reddington and being loved by him in turn.

The reality was so very different to the tight-knit unit he’d envisaged.

‘You’re not going to tell her, are you?’

‘No.’

Dembe didn’t comment. There was really nothing left to say about it and besides, there were other, more urgent concerns.

‘What about the fulcrum?’

‘What about it?’

Dembe raised his eyebrows incredulously. His friend really couldn’t be that dense.

‘You didn’t even mention it to her.

The Cabal will vote on whether to call your bluff in the next few days. They will kill you if you lose. Your life depends on possessing it but you are content to let her keep it at the expense of your own safety. You’re doing it again. Putting your life in her hands, just to see whether or not she will let you live.’

Red frowned at that last bit, but paid more attention to the general gist of what Dembe had said.

‘I’ll mention it to her, but you’re right. I’m not holding much hope; I wouldn’t be so keen to befriend Hobbs otherwise. If the vote goes south, we will run.’

‘The Island, then.’

‘No. You know once I go there I can’t come back. My job here isn’t done. I can disappear just fine without it.’

‘Not from the Cabal you can’t. You said it yourself. The fulcrum is one of the reasons you are still alive. You never had to hide from them as long as they thought you had it. Now they will find you and kill you.’

‘Chin up, Dembe. Have a little more faith. We’re going on a holiday!’

He said this with the sort of manic glee that set Dembe’s teeth on edge.

Then the phone rang, and caller ID showed it was the man tasked with watching Liz’s hotel. Dembe answered it and listened to what he had to say.

‘Tom Keen has let himself into Elizabeth’s place. She isn’t at home.’

Red scowled. What he wanted to do was go over there right now and kill the whelp for his presumption. What good was having her home watched if he allowed such a breach of security? But he knew that it lacked a certain level of subtlety and that both Liz and Dembe would be less than understanding.

‘Tell him to call back when she arrives home.’

They were only ten minutes away. He figured that would be enough time for Liz to kick Tom out if she wanted to, but not enough time for him to seriously hurt her. Red knew that he couldn’t just turn up on her doorstep; prior experience said that it would be counter productive if she became aware of the measures he had in place for her safety. He would need an explanation for his appearance at her hotel room in the middle of the night, and to distract her from the fact it coincided with Tom’s. He would give her a case.

Vanessa Cruz.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With the new episodes moving along I just want to acknowledge that the imposter theory is a thing. It's actually one of the reasons why I've been posting these chapters so quickly. I've been aiming to upload as much of this as possible just in case the imposter theory is confirmed, which would abruptly turn what I've already written into an AU. Having said that, I also want to make it clear that I intend to keep uploading this even if that happens. As it is, my take on 3A is pretty light on the father-daughter thing, the emphasis is far more on Dembe's capture and their war with the Cabal. And even if it turns out Red isn't biologically related to Liz, the man still behaves as if he's her father.


	37. Vanessa Cruz (No. 117)

Red and Dembe were busy trying to influence the Cabal’s vote while the taskforce went after Vanessa Cruz. Red had followed Vanessa’s career with interest, and he hadn’t just given her to Liz as a distraction. He knew that her personal vendetta against the men who killed her husband was about to come to a conclusion, and after that she’d be less predictable. She might continue to use her distinctive methods on other one percenters or drop off the map entirely. He didn’t want to chance letting such a useful resource go to waste. So, he’d determined to put the fear of the FBI into her and then save her. He had no idea what he’d do with her once she was in his employment but he was sure he’d find something.

When Liz called for assistance with her case Red tried to barter for the fulcrum. She refused and Red hung up, knowing that if she didn’t call him back within five minutes it would be because she’d gone to Tom for her information.

‘ _This is about Tom, isn’t it?_ That’s what she said just then, when I told her that I needed the fulcrum. That it was a matter of life and death. My life and death. But of course, everything has got to be about Tom Keen. He’s wormed his way back into her head just by turning up in her hotel room uninvited.’

That encounter with Tom at her place hadn’t quite gone to plan.

Red hadn’t really thought about pulling a gun on Tom, he’d just known that he wasn’t going to ask him to leave politely. He hadn’t counted on Liz pulling a gun on him in response. It hadn’t been nice but he supposed it was best to have it confirmed, that she would side with Tom if he ever tried to hurt him. Even after everything Tom had done to her.

And Dembe. Dembe had been there with him to watch her grow from teenager to young woman, and Red knew Dembe felt a measure of kinship towards her. When she pulled a gun on him Red hadn’t really expected Dembe to behave otherwise but it might have been comforting to know for sure that he would stand by him against absolutely anyone who threatened him. He just wished it hadn’t been her.

‘You pulled a gun on Elizabeth last night.’

His tone was neutral, he couldn’t really decide whether to approve of his reflex to protect him or criticise him for daring to threaten her irrespective of the circumstance.

‘She pulled one on you first. I won’t apologise.’

Dembe felt that pulling a gun on her had been easier than it should have been, even with her pulling one on Red first. Under normal circumstances he was fond of her, but this whole business with the fulcrum had left a bitter taste in his mouth. He knew that Red bore a large share of the responsibility. He’d been far too passive, letting her hold it over his head and failing to make it clear to her just how urgent the situation really was. But Dembe couldn’t understand what Liz was thinking. It just seemed impossible to reconcile the woman who endangered her life to save Red’s only three weeks ago with the one who apparently couldn’t be convinced to lift a finger to keep him alive now.

Red picked up on Dembe’s uncharacteristic resentment towards Liz and felt that he should say something to restore his good opinion of her. But what was there to say? _She isn’t_ that _callous_? That would acknowledge that her behaviour might seem callous from a certain perspective. _She thinks she’s doing the right thing_? But that was a platitude he ordinarily had very little patience for, and he knew it would sound weak even without hearing it aloud.

Red checked the time and grimaced. The five minutes had passed. They’d just better hope that the vote would fall in his favour.


	38. Leonard Caul (No. 62)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two things: First, I don't know much about wound care. Hell, I don't even honestly believe that Red would be able to sit upright so soon after getting shot in the chest. I've hand waved all that for the sake of some much needed hurt/comfort, and I hope you'll agree that it's worth it. Second, you'll notice that I've changed the tag from 'gen or pre-slash' to actual pre-slash. I've liked the idea of actually shipping Red/Dembe for some time, but their friendship in canon is just so perfect I didn't want to risk messing it up. Now though, I've got a pretty good idea of where I want to take it and I don't think it's going to stay platonic.

Red sat on his bed with his legs crossed in front of him and his back to Dembe. Dembe, meanwhile, knelt behind him. Red was naked above the waist, having shed his waistcoat, shirt and t-shirt folded one on top of another and placed them on a chair beside the bed. Dembe reached out to the bandage that wrapped around Red’s chest and started to roll it in on itself, unwrapping the bandage as he went along. Once it reached Red’s front, Red took over and unwrapped the bandage across his chest. And passed it back to Dembe. They worked slowly. It wasn’t simply a task to be completed; it really hadn’t needed to be done so soon and Red would normally administer to himself wherever possible. It was an excuse to touch and be touched. To reaffirm their bond after the events of the day. They needed it.

Dembe had sent Liz to the Bethesda apartment. He had known it was the only place in the world that Red possessed that was something even approaching a real home. It was his. It was private and it was safe and Dembe knew this but he’d sent her there anyway. Red had suspected it when he woke up to find that Liz wasn’t there, and that Dembe seemed to be incredibly calm about retrieving those bits of the fulcrum he did have. There had been a low, burning anger building in him, just waiting to be justified and expressed. The confirmation came when young Harrison Lee called Dembe and demanded to speak to Red. Red listened to what he had to say and then handed the phone back to Dembe.

‘I hear there’s been an unexpected visitor in the Bethesda apartment.’ Red had said. He’d demanded to know why.

‘I couldn’t leave you. So I sent her.’ Dembe had replied.

‘You sent her because you couldn’t be in two places at once?’ Red had snarled.

Dembe could only nod, unable to tell him the real reason. He hadn’t wanted to leave Red alone with Liz. Dembe really did care for her and he was grateful towards her for saving Red in the end, but he didn’t trust her with him. Especially when he was still so vulnerable. If she had simply given Red the fulcrum when it all started she wouldn’t have needed to save him in such a dramatic fashion that day. And in addition to withholding the fulcrum from him, she’d pulled a gun on him and ultimately leaked the location of his makeshift medical room, and that was just in the last few days.

‘That isn’t good enough. The photos, Dembe. The photos of her. She was never meant to see them. Now she’ll have questions.’

Dembe had realised that there was a way to explain it after all. He reminded Red that from the start he had justified his presence in her life by hinting at knowledge about her past. That while she’d forgotten her anger at him when he was shot, that wouldn’t last and any secrets she found would remind her that she needed him. Red had listened and found himself wishing for a moment that Liz would just decide whether or not she wanted him in her life and stick to it for a change, but he knew he didn’t really mean it. So he would keep her close by proving that he knew things. About her parents. About an affair between two operatives on opposing sides of the cold war and how it all fell down around their ears as the war ended.

Once the old bandage was unwound Dembe stepped off the bed and walked around so that he could kneel on the bed facing Red. He passed over the new, puckered wound with an alcohol swab and pressed a dressing on it. Red trapped Dembe’s hand against his chest with his own, and they lingered there for a moment. There was something incredibly intimate about it. With the two of them sitting so closely together and their fingers interlaced against Red’s bare chest.

That almost argument over the Bethesda apartment and Red’s dissatisfaction with his relationship with Liz might have been enough to lead to this position, along with the fact that Red had almost died. Again. But it was the way in which he’d almost died that had motivated him to hand the bandage to Dembe and ask for his assistance.

Dembe let his hand fall and moved back to sit behind Red, and they reversed the process.

In those moments that had very nearly been his last, Red had been alone. Mr Kaplan had been prepared to die for him – with him – but it wasn’t her place. Her petite, aging frame was deceptive; she was a good, ruthless shot and anyone would be grateful to have her fight by their side but one of them needed to live. To protect Liz. So he’d sent her away and she’d left him with a kiss on his forehead. As his attackers surrounded him and he’d felt abandoned. By Kate, and by Dembe. He’d known that Dembe was fighting with all the others to keep his attackers from him but they’d got through in any case and he’d been about to die alone. The slow, methodical rhythm, and the brush of Dembe’s fingers against his as the bandage passed from one to another was a counterpoint to Red’s introspection, and it allowed Red to retain perspective. Remind himself of all the times he and Dembe had fought side by side and would do so again.

He moved to thinking about the moment that his attackers had been called off.

He’d known immediately that Liz must have somehow got to the Director and he’d been awash with fear on her behalf; she had no idea just what sort of danger she’d brought upon herself in an effort to save him. But that was only the second thing he’d felt. And the first…

Red grimaced in consternation.

‘You were right, when you accused me of putting my life in Elizabeth’s hands just to see if she would let me live.’

Dembe felt his heart sink. 

‘Well. You were somewhat right,’ Red continued, ‘That first time in the park, I didn’t even know what I was walking into. That second time, at Coney Island was about saving Naomi. But over the last few months…

I didn’t know it at the time, but I think I must have been testing her just as you said. I didn’t want to have to beg for the fulcrum, or convince her to give it to me. I wanted her to give it to me simply because she knew I needed it to stay alive. And it was difficult, that she refused. More difficult than I allowed myself to acknowledge. I told myself I didn’t care. That it was a good thing that she withheld it from me; it meant that she wanted me in her life. I tried to distract myself with my efforts to remind her of our shared history. But after that fell through, and the Cabal was preparing to vote…’

Red shook his head. He’d done nothing to defend her from Dembe’s resentment over the fulcrum, and he’d come very close to resenting her himself.

‘When I knew she’d saved me after all that, it was as if nothing else mattered. I felt this sublime sense of gratitude and relief. Validation.’

Red paused here, but forced himself to continue. He relied on Dembe to keep him alive, and Dembe needed be aware of those times when he would need to protect him from himself.

‘I live for her, and when she showed that she truly did want me to live, I took that as a sign that my life was worth living. Now that I’m aware of that, it’s all too easy to imagine myself manufacturing a situation just as you described. To feel that again.’

Dembe thought it just as well that Red couldn’t see the pained dismay in his expression. He’d always known not to take Liz’s support for granted, and he fancied that Red did as well. He was a criminal working with a criminal profiler. She might have come to care for him, she might have even saved his life, but she’d been conditioned to think of him as a monster. His determination to withhold secrets from her, his tendency to protect her in spite of herself would also keep pitting them against each other. It would be in those times of conflict that Red would feel the need to test just how much she valued his life.

‘Raymond, you realise that if you get so desperate for that feeling of validation, you’re liable pick those times when she is least inclined to let you live.’

‘Yes.’

Dembe squeezed his eyes shut and exhaled sharply. There was nothing he could do, so he forced himself to focus on something else. Their movements as they finished wrapping the bandage. He fastened it, but neither moved immediately. Dembe focussed on the scars that spread across Red’s back stretching above and below the bandage. He followed the raised ridges and sunken valleys with his eyes and resisted the urge to do the same with the tip of a finger.

Instead Dembe kissed him on the shoulder at the point where scars met the undamaged skin and an almost imperceptible tremble went right through Red at the unexpected contact. He found himself thinking of the time when he’d kissed Madeline in the same place from a similar position. It was entirely different, of course. Completely, utterly different.


	39. Quon Zhang (No. 87)

Dembe was doing a jigsaw puzzle while he surreptitiously watched Red make a call that no one answered. He could have guessed who he tried to call just from his mood, but the fact that they didn’t pick up only confirmed it.

Red wouldn’t have tolerated anyone else ignoring his calls.

Dembe wondered what he had intended to say to Liz and decided that Red probably didn’t even know himself. That he’d simply called as a way to reach out to her, hoping she would reach back. There was also the way she’d accused him of murdering her father out of some twisted obsession with her mother. Red wouldn’t defend himself. But perhaps he made the call hoping that she might give some indication that she didn’t really think of him like that. As if he were some petty murderer in a paperback crime novel.

Dembe knew better than to go over to him. Try to talk about it. He wasn’t the one Red wanted to talk to at the moment. So he continued with the jigsaw puzzle, aware all the while of Red sitting across the room. After some time Red went over to Dembe and gave the phone back to him, then took a seat at the table. He glanced at the jigsaw and slotted in a piece. He really did love puzzles.

They continued like that for some time until Red started talking as if, instead of sitting for more than an hour in utter silence, they had been in the middle of a completely unrelated conversation.

‘I really would die to be ridden hard by Samar for five minutes. She is alternately frigid then smouldering. And resolute. She’s made her bed and she makes no apologies for it. In that pit of do-gooders and hypocrites she’s like a breath of fresh air.’

‘Do-gooders and hypocrites?’ Dembe said it with a shrewd glance that made Red realise he’d left himself wide open. ‘Let’s go through them. Tell me about Agent Cooper.’

Inwardly, Red was reeling. Eventually Dembe was going to invite him to criticise Liz. But he answered Dembe’s question giving no indication of his inner turmoil.

‘Easy. Harold is failing to live up to his own moral standards. Over the course of Conolly’s exhortation of him he’s so far warned the target of a coming indictment, committed perjury and probably would have obstructed the investigation into Hobbs if I hadn’t done it myself. What’s more, _someone_ leaked a fabricated, classified document about investigations into my whereabouts. I’m thankful about the perjury since it was for Lizzy’s benefit, and I don’t care about the rest. But I have no doubt that in time he will forget his own short comings and continue to hold others to the moral standards he’s fallen short of himself.’

Meanwhile, Red was thinking that he could always just refuse to answer when Dembe asked him about Liz. Dembe wouldn’t press him. Much.

‘Tell me about Agent Ressler,’ Dembe said.

‘Dear old Donald’s still rather proud of his moral high ground as well, and he seems to have completely forgotten that he’d have no claim to it at all if I hadn’t killed Mako Tanida for him last year.’

Red knew that Liz did have faults – he could just about admit that to himself – but acknowledging them aloud was another thing altogether.

‘Agent Mojtabai?’

‘Ah. You’ve got me there. The worst I can say of him is that it’s all too easy to get him to do things for me without a warrant. Not that I’m complaining.’

Red scrambled for a way to answer the question he knew was coming and he hit on it at last. He would blame Quantico.

‘Agent Keen.’

Red smiled smugly.

‘Quantico has skewed the way she thinks about people. Criminals. She’s all too ready to write us all off as monsters. Inhuman. She forgets that very few of us are complete psychopaths. I would never kill some man because the object of my affections preferred him over me. She thinks that just because she’s seen me kill people before I’d kill anyone for anything. She ought to know better.’

Red heard his lingering bitterness and hurt at Liz’s accusation come through in his voice and realised that the pretence of directing his criticism at Quantico was so thin it was practically non-existent. He saw that Dembe picked up on it too and that he was proud of him. That he hadn’t taken her judgement of him as his due and that he’d been able to say that she was wrong. Red hastened to move the conversation forward before Dembe thought to agree or – God forbid – praise him for it.

‘But Samar, she killed the Scimitar without losing sense of her moral centre in a way that Donald simply couldn’t have if he had killed Mako himself. She understands that if she’s routinely killing people simply because she’s been told it’s in her country’s best interests, she can afford to kill someone for herself. At least that way she owns it. She’s the one who made the decision whether or not that man deserved to live, she carried it out, and she will bear the consequences if she ever gets caught.

She also understands that there are rules when you work outside the law, and that they need to be all the more stringent for being self imposed.’

Red paused momentarily when he realised that he’d come very close to criticising Liz again. He went on talking about Samar as if that hadn’t even occurred to him.

‘And today, she was magnificent as always. Playing the torturer, and then the double agent. Shooting you, that was a good performance on your part as well, by the way…’

Dembe grinned in acknowledgement.

‘Ah,’ Red continued, ‘and the way her long wavy hair frames her face and shoulders and her breasts…’

His eyes glazed over and his mouth gaped a little as he lost himself for a moment in his imagination. His expression was so open, so hedonistic that Dembe couldn’t take his eyes off him. Then Red blinked before grinning at Dembe with sheepishness and latent sensuality and although Dembe knew it hadn’t been intended that way he felt as if Red had just included him in his fantasy.

Dembe bit back a moan and sat unmoving for a moment until Red broke eye contact and reached for another piece of the jigsaw, allowing him to do the same.


	40. Karakurt (No. 55)

Dembe noticed that Red was uncharacteristically withdrawn and contemplative while they were waiting for Anton Velov to be dropped in.

‘Are you sure you want to do this, Raymond?’

‘Yes, of course I’m sure. Why would you ask otherwise?’

‘You’re not acting like it.’

Red sighed, acknowledging the folly of lying to himself when Dembe was around, let alone the folly of lying to Dembe directly.

‘I wouldn’t have known that I needed to retain Anton’s services if Elizabeth hadn’t told me of him. She wanted to make me worry, but also, I think she wanted me to be proud of her. Of her resourcefulness. And I _am_ proud of her but she’s acting as if this is a game. She knows I’ve already manipulated her memories and threatened a man’s life to keep her from knowing about her past, what on Earth makes her think that I’d just bow out now that I know she’s found Anton?

Really, when he refuses to tell her anything tomorrow it’ll be no one’s fault but her own.’

Dembe frowned.

'Silencing Anton Velov is your decision to make.’

Red had to acknowledge the truth of that as well.

‘She’ll know it was me. Her trust is all too precious and fragile and I’m about to abuse it.’

Dembe wasn't all that sympathetic.

‘Then let Anton speak to her.’

Red shook his head with the most decisiveness he’d demonstrated on the subject.

‘No. Anton will only give her misinformation. He’s under the impression that she faked her death somehow and it would only confuse the situation further. I can’t let him do that. If she hates me for it, then so be it.’

Dembe saw that there was no budging him and didn’t attempt it. Instead he found himself thinking of Red’s meeting with Cooper. Of the way Cooper had confided in Red, confessed what he’d done for Conolly and looked to him to give him a way forward. Red had taken on the role of confessor and offered absolution only if he “repaid his debt” and spied on Conolly for him. He’d also failed to mention that he’d known all along what was happening.

‘You let Agent Cooper continue to believe he’s sick. That served no purpose.’

Red tilted his head from side to side and shrugged.

‘He’ll find out soon enough. Besides, I can’t have him confronting Conolly in a fit of righteous anger.’

‘That would just make it all the more difficult to play spymaster, wouldn’t it?’

Of all the facets his friend had, the spymaster was one of his least favourite. Even then it was only certain aspects of the spymaster he disliked. He’d made peace with the torture. He would have to have, with all the fetching and carrying he did for Brimley. It was Red’s manipulation of people who were meant to be his allies that Dembe found distasteful.

And in the space of a few hours he would watch Red manipulate Cooper, Velov and Liz.

‘What’s gotten into you?’ Red asked.

The question was oblivious but perceptive. Red didn’t really understand why Dembe was upset. But under normal circumstances Dembe wouldn’t have let it get to him so much and that was what Red picked up on.

‘Our war with the Cabal has higher stakes than ever before. They’ve killed fourteen people, ambushed Elizabeth for unknown reasons and here we sit, waiting until the last moment to escape the trap they’ve set for us.’

Red frowned, went to speak but Dembe overrode him.

‘I know we can’t attack them directly and until we know more about their plans we can’t react to them. But I find it difficult. I'm a soldier, Raymond, not a spy.’

‘No. You’re an honest man.’

Red said it with fondness underlaid with grim self-knowledge. Dembe saw that Red had taken that “not a spy” comment and put it together with the derisive way he’d said “spymaster” and understood exactly what had upset him in the first place.

Dembe didn’t know how to respond. He hadn’t meant his criticism to be so harsh, but it was no less true. Then Red’s expression brightened.

‘You’re right, it’s time we stopped reacting to their attacks and carried out some of our own. I’ll release the fulcrum. That’s one card I’ve held on to long enough.’

Red used Dembe as a sounding board as he talked about how he’d go about releasing it, and the logistics of abducting 11 of the world’s best investigative journalists. Dembe thought of pointing out to Red that he’d be able to reach more people with far less effort if he just uploaded the fulcrum onto the internet. He stayed silent. Red’s enthusiasm was infectious and he didn’t want to ruin it for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Red talks of threatening a man's life to keep Liz from knowing about her past he's referring to the random Russian man Liz and Tom question in S2E20. I might have mentioned Sam here as well, but I didn't think Red would bring that up in casual conversation. And about Katarina, I tend to believe she's dead. Because of Cape May, and because I think Red planted the photo that Velov tells Liz about. When Liz confronts Red about it in S3E16 he responds by saying that it might have been planted. Like when he tells Liz that the memories of a four year old are unreliable in S2E10 when he knows for a fact that they're unreliable because he manipulated them himself. But, well, at this point I might be reading things into it that aren't there.


	41. Tom Connolly (No. 11)

Dembe watched Red break the news about the Cabal to eleven of the best investigative journalists in the world. The auditorium was darkly lit and Red sat on the stage, ensuring that their eyes were fixed on the screen behind him. Even so, his voice was engaging and determined and his ordinary charisma was magnified full force. Dembe could tell he wasn’t the only one who felt it. He watched the eleven civilians who’d been taken hostage and shipped across the world turn from unwilling guests into attentive listeners.

Red talked to them as if he was a war general and they were his soldiers. Telling them that they might die for his cause, warning them that their loved ones might suffer for it, but that it was a cause worth fighting for all the same. He echoed every journalist’s mantra as if he believed in it, and they believed him. _The truth will out._

Dembe knew that some would turn a blind eye to protect themselves and their families. But others were looking at Red with determination, even admiration.

After Red finished talking the lights were turned back on and paper copies of the Fulcrum were handed out. Then Red headed over to Mr Kaplan, and touched her arm.

‘I apologise for my behaviour earlier.’

What had he said to her, again? _I don’t need to tell you there’s no margin for error._ And her response: _That is correct, you do not._ Yes, he’d offended her and he owed her an apology. Red’s contrition and affection were appreciated and Mr Kaplan’s lingering resentment softened into fond exasperation.

‘That’s alright dearie.’

Red embraced her and kissed her on the cheek before going off to find Dembe. Mr Kaplan watched them go, and saw them hold hands as they turned into a rarely used corridor. She wondered just who they thought they were fooling and motioned Baz over. She explained the situation to him and sent him off to loiter at the entrance to the corridor. He would ensure that they got some privacy. After all, they were in a building that was still full of the world’s best investigative journalists.

Red and Dembe had found a bench in that same corridor and they sat close together still holding hands.

‘I love you,’ said Dembe.

‘What, why?’

‘You can’t seriously be surprised.’

Red wasn’t, it wasn’t even the first time Dembe had said it but all the same he didn’t really understand it.

‘But why tell me this now?’

‘There was nobility in what you did on that stage. In telling the story, revealing that truth to them. In asking for their help and explaining the risks. They listened to you. You bought their loyalty with a good story and a worthy cause.

I’m proud of you, Raymond.’

Red could do no more than squeeze Dembe’s hand, though it wasn’t nearly enough to express his gratitude and affection. Red felt a tension build between them, a tension he was determined to ignore. He changed the subject with more abruptness than he intended.

‘With Elizabeth a wanted fugitive, she and I might have to go away for a while.’

The source of his uncertainty wasn’t whether or not she would run, but who she would choose to run away with. He had people watching Tom so he knew she had been with him on his boat. He'd also tasked them with fitting the boat with a tracker. If she did choose Tom at least he could keep track of her, monitor her safety that way.

‘And I will stay here,’ Dembe replied.

‘Yes.’

A heavy silence settled over them and Red realised that he had no words to express what he was feeling. He hated it every time he and Dembe were separated, and this time he would have no idea of when he would see him again.

‘And Raymond, don’t get so caught up in protecting her that you forget to protect yourself.’

Red’s throat constricted, and he swallowed visibly but there was no clearing it. Instead he tilted his chin up a little and leaned across Dembe’s shoulder to kiss him on the cheek, and Dembe leaned into the contact. Red lingered there for a moment before moving back to sit shoulder to shoulder with Dembe again. Time seemed to stretch and shrink simultaneously. They could have been there for an infinity or a blink of an eye.

Then Dembe’s phone rang. It was one of Red's informants. Tom Connolly had been shot dead by Elizabeth Keen.


	42. Well That Happened...

I said that I would continue writing this if the Imposter Theory was confirmed, and I will, but you might not like where this is going.

We know that Red stole the identity of Liz’s real father and loved her mother, so it’s still plausible to say that he entered her life with the intent to be a father figure to her. He thinks he’s entitled to have her watched and weigh in on her relationship with Tom, even tries to forbid him from marrying her. He wishes he’d brought her up himself.

That’s all paternal, regardless of whether or not he really is her father.

But just removing the assumption that he’s biologically related to her will change things. His undying devotion to her, his Liz-induced mood swings, and the way he interacts with her will all start to look rather less familial. Hell, I already acknowledged in chapter 30 that he doesn’t always interact with her like a father should. The way this is going to play out in my work over seasons 3 and 4 (and possibly 5) is that he thinks he wants a paternal role in her life and he’s unconsciously repressed anything that might contradict that, though it seeps through in his behavior.

I’ll try to keep the Lizzington undertones as subtle as possible – you might even be able to ignore them to an extent – but I understand if you find them hard to swallow. If this is a deal breaker for you, then I can really only thank you for sticking with this story as long as you have and hope you enjoyed the ride.

One of the main reasons I’m continuing with this fic after the Imposter Theory reveal is the Red/Dembe relationship. I want to be able to show their fallout in the aftermath of Mr Kaplan’s ‘death,’ and I have the bare bones of the progression of their relationship mapped out. It isn’t set in stone but I’m really excited about where it’s headed and I hope I’m not the only one.

Two more things: first, for obvious reasons I’ll be continuing _Conversations_ in a different work so there’s a clear distinction between it as a Daddygate one and its continuation as one with Lizzington undertones. Second, I’m going to go back and label the relevant chapters in this work for Daddygate and other anachronisms. I’m not ashamed of this work – I’m actually pretty proud of it – but I would like it to be accessible to anyone who might read it in the future.

Thanks again for reading this fic, and I really do hope you continue.


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